Angel
by Dardarr
Summary: AU after PKWars No one was going to leave him alone, not after he blew up a planet & wiped out two armadas, & safely at that. Aeryn & their son fall to assassins, John falls into depression. Moya births a daughter who likes John & decides to keep him. He likes her too, even if she's kinda an icy psycho. A neural link between her & his tortured mind? Not sane. [Written just for fun]


§§§§ Talyn V2.0

Angel

AU after PKWars. No one was going to leave him alone, not after he blew up a planet & wiped out two armadas, and safely at that. Aeryn & their son fall to assassins, John falls into depression. Moya births a daughter who likes John & decides to keep him. He likes her too, even if she's more icy psycho than angsty teen (Talyn). A neural link between her & his tortured mind? Not sane.

A/N: Just posting this here as a backup, probably going to take it down after some stuff. No editing was done, this is just for fun.

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Talyn was absolutely beautiful. There were no words in English that could capture the depth, the magnitude of his beauty. Talyn, Aeryn had named him. A more fitting name had never been given. Sleek, black and red, like some bloodied dagger, Talyn the hybrid war-Leviathan was wondrous to behold.

A part of Crichton was enraptured by the incredible living ship. A part of him desired it.

But then Crais got him, and what with he himself being cloned, again kinda, and everything else... well. It all fell apart. Nothing unusual about that, except this time it was beyond the norm. They managed to limp away, as they always, somehow, did, but it cost Talyn his life.

No more would that wondrous ship roam the universe.

Things settled into a bizarre, haphazard pattern of mild rest, acute paranoia, imminent death, danger, mind-rape and torture, and some short-lived semblance of safety before repeating continuously.

Then they went through hell, again, ripped open a growing singularity that could literally unmake the galaxy, blackmailed the two main warring factions of the galaxy into signing a peace treaty after obliterating their armies and survived.

Mostly.

They lost many friends along the way. Far too many. An entire world, and two armadas the likes of which this galaxy had rarely seen, completely torn from existence save for the two battered command ships. Millions of lives, dead by his hand.

Again.

Yet it had been almost worth it. Aeryn was his beautiful wife, they had a beautiful son, and no one was out to kill him. Scorpius had gotten his wish, somewhat, and had given up, partly. The wormhole knowledge that had been gifted him, and painstakingly learned and won, was gone. The weapon still existed, but it was useless without the vast knowledge and higher consciousness tied in with the almost arcane gift.

In hindsight, perhaps they should have told someone that little detail. But that wouldn't have worked either.

Their surviving friends had left one by one in the following months of peace, making their way home to whatever they had left there. Rygel in particular was now working to becoming once more Dominar of his great empire. His cousin was already half deposed in an ironic echo of the way he took the thrown, save that it was done by the people themselves, all eager to welcome back their beloved and now famous ruler. He still had some work before him, but the rightful heir was well on his way when they parted from him.

Chiana went off looking for her brother along with the Luxons, having no real starting place and eager to keep in contact with the one remaining blood tie to her dead lover. They followed their leader, who was loathe to part from his father's lover. His, once, too. And apparently again. Strange how they tried to forget their grief by losing themselves in passion together, the same thing that had caused the dead Luxan so much pain.

They ended up sending the Luxans ahead and travelling with Rygel of all things.

The old witch, Noranti, had hovered around, up to her usual strange shenanigans and not really bothering anyone for the time being.

Some time later a simple cold, some sort of mild alien flu, absolutely harmless if somewhat irritating, infected their son. Little Dargo was sick for the first time. Of course, they were concerned and anxious for their son, but he would be fine with their medicine and a few days extra care and rest. He already slept through the night. Peace Keepers sure knew what they were doing with their genetic manipulations, he'd give them that. No annoying crying in the middle of the night, not even once.

It helped tremendously, what with the constant attempts to destroy or capture them.

News of the super weapon, the wormhole singularity projector, the black hole maker, had spread through the Peace Keeper and Scarren ranks. Then through commerce planets. Then traders. Then virtually everyone.

Some sides wanted the technology for themselves. Who wouldn't? The ability to create something like a black hole, self sustaining and ever growing until it was deactivated. All fired from a supposedly peaceful Leviathan ship. With starburst capabilities.

A lethal combination.

Some wanted to destroy such unholy technology. Some wanted to blackmail entire worlds. It didn't matter that they could fire it and wipe out any opposition, such power was worth the risk. Besides, they reasoned amongst themselves, it had to be fired at long range or they themselves would be drawn in and destroyed. All they needed to do was get in close!

So Moya and her crew were beset by pirates and mercenaries, small militaries from independent worlds, and covert attacks from the Peace Keepers. Strangely enough, the Scarrens had made no overt attempt. Though it was easily believed that most of the mercenaries were in their pay.

After all, the existence of such a weapon was the only thing preventing them from waging their war. They outnumbered the Peace Keepers ten to one, even with the limitations of staging their main bases on planets that could grow their all important delicacy; the Crystherium flower that augmented their intelligence.

So with all the attacks, it was indeed a boon that their son slept soundly and did not disturb them from their much prized, and needed, sleep.

Then the witch had tried one of her usual tricks. In all fairness, she couldn't have guessed how her unfathomable potion would react to the vestiges of Pilot's DNA still lingering in Aeryn. Their son had gone to breast feed, with mother and father watching, enraptured by the beauty of such a natural thing.

It was over in seconds.

The 'medicine' was still coating their baby's lips and mouth. Aeryn's nipple provided entry to her body, one never before in danger. Her breast milk reacted with the foreign contaminant, mother and son went into shock and collapsed, violent spasms racking their frames.

Their son's heart gave out almost immediately.

Aeryn's followed soon after.

There was absolutely nothing they could do. Both died and the 'medicine' raced through their systems, tainting and trashing everything it came across.

The witch had explained her attempt to use something, some living, virus like thing, to cure his son. Modified with god knows what in her cauldron that was never washed clean of past potions and projects. And Aeryn's Sebacean breast milk, modified to be extremely potent and now vulnerable from the remnants of Pilot's DNA, was apparenlty like super steroids to it. She couldn't have known.

This time, John Crichton didn't listen to any of her excuses. Every single meddling interference of hers flashed through his mind, dominated only by the constantly replaying scene of his family being torn apart right before his eyes. Their horrible, painful deaths.

Caused by her damned 'medicine'.

By the time his pulse pistol was out of ammo, there was very little left of the witch. It turned out that she was bioloid. Wether she had been one all along, or this was an imposter, he didn't know. It was not the first time such a thing had happened, either way.

Bioloids were a specialty of the Scarrens. Who had the greatest motive for simply killing all of them.

John burst into action, dressing in one of the airtight suits, getting the DRDs to secure his wife and son before venting the atmosphere of that particular compartment. His mind raced through his options and he soon remembered the cyro-chambers still aboard from their misadventure on the diagnostic planet.

They were placed in the one together, looking for all the world to be merely sleeping like mother and son. Only stored in a giant container.

More detailed scans revealed the 'medicine' to be a virus. It had indeed reacted unexpectedly, had it not it would have spread to him as well before killing them the next day. The Scarren's, for it must have been them, knew the witch's ingredients were overlooked, and that anything else would have been easily discovered by Moya's now paranoid scans.

Luckily, he mocked himself, it had not accounted for Aeryn's altered physiology and so been triggered early.

The witch's belongings were quickly spaced by the DRDs and they starburst three times as fast as was possible. Not that John noticed.

He stood in the fateful room, staring where the bodies of his wife and son had fallen. The cryo-chamber had been placed there lying flat where he could pretend they were sleeping.

He raged for days when the DRDs tried to remove them to prepare them for jettison out into the closest sun, full funeral rites and all. He knew they were dead, that there was nothing to be done in the wake of that deadly artificial virus, but he wasn't about to let them go.

Then, after the DRDs finally completely understood and left well enough alone, depression claimed him for months. He ate a little, slept a little, stared into space, stared at their unmoving forms, and ran himself ragged. He followed for the most part the Peace Keeper training program Aeryn had taught him, they had gone through it together during the few peaceful times.

It gave him something mindless to do, and the intense physical exertion helped keep his thoughts in check. Pretending the punching bag was an enemy helped, too. In this way, months sped by.

Not that he was paying any attention to the passage of time. It was only when Pilot got his attention with the knowledge that Moya was pregnant. Quite close to giving birth, actually.

Apparently Moya and Pilot had been roaming uninhabited space at will, following old Leviathan paths and growing the newer bond between them that was still so fresh. Part of the journey had brought them to ancient mating grounds and, still aching from the loss of her first, Moya had decided to try for a second.

Her extraordinary experiences coupled with her shiny scars, symbols of survival, and the fact that she had survived birthing her first child led to her being a highly desirable mate. She'd had the pick of the males, to the anger of several older females, but this was not the first time she had encountered raging leviathans and she had bested them with grace, skilled beyond her years. By necessity.

How Crichton had slept through everything escaped everyone involved.

A sleek, swift, strong male was chosen, and the pair had mated in the twisting dance of their kind. Thinking back, Crichton definitely remembered the spiralling that had caused the violent loss of several meals.

Moya had not made the mistakes of last time, she informed both Pilot and John of her joyous condition. John hadn't even noticed, still lost in his depression and grief, so the ship and Pilot had gone about things as if they had no guests aboard, save for ensuring the DRD brought Crichton food and water. With so much stockpiled and only the one mouth to feed, they had several cycles worth, easily.

But now they needed his help. Moya's baby was only a number of months from delivery, and contrary to all hopes and expectations, the Peace Keeper experiment had bred true once more.

Gentle scans revealed weapon systems, armour and a structure somewhat like Talyn, but different. A little fatter, a little wider though lacking the outright wings, more angular without actual angles and with no obvious protruding weapons. The birth would be difficult, but not life threatening without the massive turret and wings to get caught. Still, Moya and Pilot wanted Crichton to help.

Just in case.

And Crichton responded with something close to glee. A distraction! Something to focus on, something important that needed his attention. Moya was having a baby! New life was something so precious to him. Now more than ever.

Aeryn would have loved to see this, he thought in one moment of clarity. The baby was beautiful. Through the protective membrane and whatever else it was, he could already see the sleek black form that would have given Crais wetdreams. Faint, muted silver and purple ripples danced over the black in thin, inky veins, barely visible.

She was amazing.

Oh, Pilot and Moya were not certain yet, but Crichton could feel it. This ship was definitely female, and the strange sense of possessiveness that had always struck him around incredible alien technology took hold with a vengeance. Having absolutely nothing else to focus on didn't help.

With Talyn, he had been so busy and life was full of distractions. Now there were months with nothing else to focus on. They were in the middle of nowhere, orbiting a barren planet for the last few weeks of Moya's pregnancy. It had been months now since he was woken from his depressed stupor, and each day he had spent every waking hour either near the baby or focusing on it.

There was nothing left for him here. His wife and son were gone, the wormhole to earth was closed, and he had no way of getting back. Even if he wanted to. Surprising how after all this time, that one blue planet just seemed so insignificant. Oh it was precious to him, but he couldn't imagine actually spending the rest of his life there.

All these years of running for his life, constant danger and battle, had left their mark on him. He was dangerous, and bored by normal life. He needed more than that.

So as he crooned lullabies and songs and stories of their adventures to the developing baby, his mind raced.

The Peace Keepers and the Scarrens had a truce, enforced by the threat of total obliteration. A threat that he was no longer capable of delivering, he knew. The two factions had generations of bitterness and war between them, no truce, however strong, would last.

Pirates and other factions, and the two main sides themselves would keep coming after him for the technology. Hadn't he proven that the wormhole weapon was supremely powerful, and yet capable of being halted? He had destroyed a planet and then closed the singularity. Obviously, smaller ones could be harnessed against enemy forces. Not to mention the infinitely simpler use of instant transportation. A few dozen ships armed to the teeth, suddenly appearing to launch their payloads and then vanishing without a trace?

No, the threat would not stop them from coming, even after this time in hiding, they would be hounded. The power was too great to be ignored for such a thing as death. Eventually they would capture Moya and himself, and who knew what they could achieve with the weapon already built? Scorpius already had most of the equations.

Not that they would be of much use, just enough to be dangerous to all involved.

He couldn't simply destroy the technology, the war would erupt without that threat over their head. Besides, he had built it, they would hunt him to make him build another weapon. Not that he could, but then that had never stopped them before, had it?

And there were yet other threats out there. Chiana's brother was part of a resistance against a threat possibly far greater than even the Scarrens. Likely not quite so bad, but absolutely a great threat all the same.

So John Crichton planned and plotted, and his slight insanity grew deeper.

The birth of the baby went infinitely smoother than last time. Moya was older and larger, and had given birth to a much more difficultly shaped baby than this smooth, slim hull. It was indeed a girl, almost invisible against the blackness of space with just enough faint violet-silver veins that clustered together into fake stars and gas clouds to not cause a visibly outlined black shape.

John was with the baby the entire way, actually stuck to her hull and laughing as it flew happy circles around it's mother. Eventually it flew in close and latched onto its mother, physically linking via an umbilical cord-like vine that extended between them, sharing thoughts and nutrients between mother and daughter. John reluctantly made his way back into Moya.

Moya asked him to name the baby, and he called her Angel. Perhaps Shadow or Ghost might have fit her dark, hidden colour a little better, but Angel fit perfectly well when heard in full. Angel of Death. Naturally, John kept that little bit to himself.

Moya and Pilot were quite happy with the name, eager to embrace anything that separated it from its warship nature. Angel too liked the name when John conveyed it's beautiful, powerful, and graceful meanings.

Angel asked Moya to send Crichton over, eager to meet the man in her mother's memories. John naturally agreed.

He took his prowler and a few DRDs, excluding 1812 for the moment. The first proper meeting was amazing. As beautiful as she was on the outside, her insides were more so. Silver and black decorated the mixture of organic and mechanic fixtures. Comfortable pale purple and silvery walls, glossy black floors and accents that glittered with silver and dark purple spun their way through her already growing deck.

Talyn had beeped, hummed and growled. His Angel chimed, sang and snarled. She remembered his soothing voice as he sang her lullabies and told her stories of her mother's, and by extension his, adventures. Her interior weapon systems, already more extensive though less large than her brother's had been, tracked his every move but only for the extra viewpoints.

Moya found this rude, but Crichton thought it was rather cute.

He stayed aboard her for hours, sometimes leaning on a developing console, sometimes pacing around the command centre, but always talking and listening.

Her naive questions about some of his misadventures made him laugh, and her anger on his behalf strangely comforted him. He felt incredibly connected to her, much like he felt with Moya except in this case Angel was all alone. Just him and Moya around. And he had been with Angel since before her birth. Besides, she was special.

The DRDs he had brought with him eventually finished their inspection and came back to deliver their report. Being off Moya, they interfaced with one of Angel's consoles and brought up the information contained within, along with everything they had found, on a holographic display.

Angel was a research and development vessel. Well, as close to a research vessel as an experimental, top secret, weaponised Leviathan-hybrid designed by the Peace Keepers could be. Talyn was an advanced assault gunship/scout that would have grown into becoming something close to a Dreadnought, perhaps even larger.

Angel on the other hand, was designed to discover, study and create new technologies. Being a Leviathan, new tech would literally grow into place. What caught John's attention though were the four tail fins that didn't quite meet, two longer, larger outside two shorter, thinner ones closer to the middle.

Where Moya had the one tail with a spine that met with a fin on each side, and Talyn had a long tail and two wings, Angel had barely any tail, no spine, and four fin-like semi-wings. Her 'wings' were angular and much like her brother's, but weren't as separate from the main body by virtue of her width and were slightly more curved inwards. Two more fins from secondary ridges ran as though to join them at two points near where her tail would have been, but like Talyn they didn't meet, merely pointed towards one another with their sharp, slightly hooked spikes.

The effect was a less elongated and more angular, flat teardrop shape with slightly folded angel wings. Or perhaps simply the silhouette of two such wings overlapped. Kinda.

More specifically though, the area that caught his eye was just between the larger and smaller fins.

There, hidden on the joint, were two small Prowler-like shapes seemingly welded against the hull on each side, above and below. A closer look revealed another ten such shapes just beneath the front of Angel's hull, attached to the bottom and facing forwards in two classic Peace Keeper formations, one behind the other. And another ten on top, this time five on each side facing diagonally forwards.

Angel was some kind of carrier/factory. Smaller ships literally grew out of her hull. Judging from the small size, the strange Prowlers weren't anywhere near finished yet, but for there to be twenty four (that he could see!) growing already was just ridiculous. She was just a baby, not a tenth of her mother's size!

Imagine how many there would be when she matured.

And Talyn had grown so ridiculously fast.

Angel seemed to sense his unease and queried it with a series of chimes. He smiled and explained that he was just surprised at the number of miniature ships she was growing, and in awe of her wonderful, beautiful self.

She preened under his compliments and boasted about her abilities. The outside ships that grew from her hull would be drones! Her own data files and scans revealed a future capacity to grow manned vessels inside her hangers, but the drones would all grow on the outside as an extra layer of armour until they were complete.

Naturally, as she matured and grew she would be able to grow more and at accelerated rates. The drones could be controlled manually via interfaces at the weapons station, or completely by her.

Her main weapons were a pair of double-barrelled turrets, one mounted above and the other below. They functioned much like Talon's single canon, and were similarly retractable, though with less power and more focus on repeated fire. Of course, she hastily added with some concern, she was completely capable of growing more powerful weaponry and upgrading others as she grew.

John assured her that her weaponry was impressive, especially for such a young ship as she, and enquired about her drones. They would be roughly a quarter the size of Powlers when complete, not needing room for a pilot, life support, and extremely long distance engines. So they were much closer to complete than he had initially thought. And they need not be fully grown, or detached, to fire their weaponry. Thus she would soon have a large number of smaller turrets available, in addition to the score of point defence turrets already growing into her hull. All fully retractable, of course.

John was just about ready to marry her.

Soon enough the topic turned to captains. Angel, thanks to the link with her mother, had the full memories from Moya that showed her brother's choice of captain and everything that went with it. Having viewed the data, and communicated with him at length, Angel decided that she wanted John to be her captain, that she wanted to share consciousness with him.

He was honoured, not that he really expected anything else, and replied that he would love to be joined with her, though perhaps he should talk with her mother first. Explain his intentions towards her.

Angel's chimed laughter was as beautiful as she was.

Moya and Pilot had nothing against their captain taking up the role for Angel. After all, Angel needed a captain like Moya needed a Pilot. A guiding, separate yet shared intelligence to help her grow and learn.

For all his quirks, Commander John Crichton had pulled them through thick and thin and was a good person. Unfortunate circumstances had forced him to make incredibly difficult choices and he had always managed to rise to the occasion, doing what was best for all involved and taking special care for Moya.

Only Zhaan and Aeryn had deeper bonds to Moya, and those through means not available to the human. Shared DNA and spiritual bonding had tied those two closer to the ship and Pilot, but with Crichton it was simply a long time spent helping each other, and many shared near-death experiences.

Perhaps they should have paid a little more attention to remembering exactly how many times their resident human had his mind frelled with.

Ancient knowledge implanted subconsciously, the Aurora chair, Scarren heat probes and interrogations, a neural clone chip twice over, a partial brain transplant, more Ancient knowledge and interference, bondings, mind links, mind control, possession and a space demon out to eat is soul were just a few of his past misadventures. Mind frelling was almost an everyday occurrence for the unfortunate Commander John Crichton.

No one really thought about how sharing his mind would affect the newborn ship. Talyn had been violent and ruthless enough without any additional negative interference.

So Crichton made his way to the command seat and sat in it feeling like some king open his throne. Unlike Talyn, Angel's command centre and vestigial pilot's den were one and the same. Angel's neural transponder was much like Talyn's, being partially imbedded at the base of the skull. Angel's one, however, would be mostly internal.

The tendril descended from the ceiling behind Crichton's back and, with a moments warning, struck. The thin spike stabbed into him and immediately sealed itself into its new home. John barely had time to gasp in pain before millions of sensations overwhelmed him. Every sensor, every function and system all sent their information to him, and likewise, the link sent back everything to Angel.

For the leviathan, it was a novel experience to perceive the world around it in so limited a way. Several basic senses and only two eyes for guidance? It was nothing at all, a few moments work, to incorporate them into her massive sensory array.

His mind, however, was a different story.

Talyn had wanted guidance, a strong voice to tell him what to do and to explain things to him so he could grow into himself and know what action to take.

Angel too wanted guidance, but unlike Talyn she was designed primarily for research, so she had a much greater desire for information and understanding.

And John Crichton's mind was like nothing else.

His childhood and life on Earth was simple to understand, and it gave her some insight into the workings of her captain's mind. But once he fell through the wormhole, things got complicated.

John Crichton was a scientist, and a brilliant one at that. His mind was not geared towards simple actions, no matter how it appeared, but to understanding things around him. Having been thrust into the high tech, alien surroundings had played havoc with his brain but fortunately he had science fiction to relate everything to. Several concepts she found there were interesting enough that she filed them away for future experimentation.

With Crichton's mind and Moya's memories, and the inbuilt banks of data courtesy of the Peace Keepers, for it would not do for their research vessel to be ignorant and unequipped, Angel had quite the head start.

Moya had scanned so many alien technologies during their adventures, but had lacked the means to understand or make use of them beyond a few simple modifications via her DRDs. Angel had no such lack. Already she had plundered the scans and part of her mind was devoted to gleaning useful technologies for integration.

Luxon, Scarren, Nebarri, and a few others in particular. She already had full information, including most ship-based projects, about Peace Keeper technology up until quite recently.

But the truly interesting things were the wormhole knowledge and the neural implant.

Oh, the Ancients had removed the knowledge they had gifted her captain with from his reach. But memory is not so simple a thing to remove, least of all that which is subconscious. Combined with the imprint of Scorpius' neural clone, Angel was able to retrieve every last scrap of the original gift of wormhole knowledge.

The weaponised technology information was unfortunately beyond her reach; the Ancients had been far more concerned about that and it had never been subconscious knowledge.

Luckily for her, she almost didn't need it. Moya still carried the weapon itself after all, and had fired it. It would hopefully not take too much effort to reverse engineer the feat, especially with the general wormhole knowledge she and Crichton now had access to.

Well, as soon as her captain acclimatised to the sensory overload. Right now it was just hers.

Scorpius' neural clone was good for more than a link to Crichton's subconscious. It carried every single memory and every single thought the half-Scarren had ever had. Personality and mind, too.

For all his faults, Scorpius was a genius. Strategy, tactics, plots within plots and schemes within schemes were his playground. He had access to secrets from both the Peace Keepers and the Scarrens as he played triple agent, not to mention countless independant factions and alliances he had made for himself.

He had been the only one to truly scare her captain, the only one to see the full potential he carried. Were he here to chose from, Angel might have been hard pressed to pick between the two for her captaincy based on them by themselves.

Luckily for her, her captain carried almost everything she could have gained from Scorpius and so much more.

Angel spent a microt considering her splendid good fortune and trying to calculate what could be causing it.

It was perhaps not so lucky that Scorpius had injured her captain so much, so often. He would likely not appreciate having 'Harvey' back in his head. But it would be too beneficial to remove it, even with it now taken over and incorporated into her own mind and systems. She wanted her captain to survive, and however much she disliked the fact he would have to leave her every so often.

Which was something to work on, but later.

So Angel removed the image of Scorpius from the imprint she now officially dubbed 'Harvey', and tried to imagine a new representation to take it's place. Perhaps an image of Aeryn? No, that would likely cause too many problems.

She went through his memories and inspiration struck. Angel of Death, hmm? That was promising.

So she crafted a humanoid avatar, maybe borrowing a little from Aeryn. Pale skin, dark hair, beautiful graceful features and a slim, toned figure. Almost black angel wings with silvery sparkles sprouted from her back to contrast with her angelic skin, which was covered with a silky black cocktail dress that had inky ripples that matched her piercing violet eyes. She had a warm, soft voice that could whisper in low, confidential tones, joke wittily or laugh along perfectly.

Angel's avatar was officially complete. 'Harvey' was incorporated into her own full intelligence and was merged in seamlessly, all wrapped up in an avatar her captain would love. It was now an imprint of herself, and combined with the neural link they shared it would help her captain greatly, even when he was too far for their link to work.

She was now in his head, with or without the link. A neural clone of her mind imprinted in his, and a link to share consciousness together. And an imprint of his mind in hers, however small it was.

Together forever. She was now a step closer. A pity her captain had such a short life expectancy, but that was something easily fixed. Had not Sebaceans originally been human, only to be altered and improved greatly? Aeryn was a simple soldier and she would have lived easily three times longer than Crichton. How much greater the lifespan of the leaders? Genetic engineering was an everyday thing in this galaxy, and Crichton had even encountered one of the greatest. Had not Aeryn been altered into something like one of Pilot's race, that lived for many centuries? Were not Leviathans capable of living for several millennia?

No, her captain would not be dying any time soon.

Angel commandeered the DRDs that her clever captain had brought aboard, and began putting her plan into action.

Over the weeks while her captain was in something resembling a coma, Angel docked with her mother and changed many things.

The food and supplies, no longer needed aboard Moya, were brought on board by the DRDs along with every single loose item not native to Moya herself. They weren't needed there, and were pretty much owned by Crichton anyway.

Moya and her Pilot were concerned for her captain, but Angel assured them that all was well. Talyn had not allowed his full sensory information to flow into Crais, wary of causing his incapacitation when he needed guidance immediately. Angel had no such need as there were no pressing dangers, and the nature of her link to her captain's mind allowed her to have his experiences anyway.

More and more DRDs were built by Moya to facilitate the needs of her daughter and the transport and installation of everything. It was agreed that the wormhole weapon should be removed from Moya to lessen the danger to her; it couldn't be fired and if an enemy got close enough to see it gone they would have lost anyway.

What Pilot and Moya didn't know, thanks to some infiltration software and smooth talking, was that the DRDs didn't destroy the weapon so much as move it to Angel and begin installing it there. Along with helping her grow and install the numerous beneficial technologies she had her eye on.

She had been born with the beginnings of the standard two defence screens used by Peace Keepers, though obviously more experimental versions. It would take several months for them to grow on their own, so she used the many DRDs to help them along. And install backups.

If there was one main thing she had learned from Crichton's experiences, it was that spares were very important when things went wrong. And things always went wrong.

The personal Tarkan shield belts were very interesting, along with the Luxan shield and stealth capabilities that Moya had witnessed. They were studied, improved and implemented as numerous emitters around her hull and inside at important areas. Unfortunately she did not have access to enough power to maintain them for very long, even with the greater efficiency brought by the Tarkan technology. She was still so young.

If only she were older.

Like Moya.

Come to think of it, Moya didn't really need all that extra power anymore. Moya would be just another Leviathan, peaceful and of little use to anyone save as a transport. And she wouldn't need her modified womb anymore; that would just cause problems for her if anyone found out she could birth more Levianthan warships. Besides, she already had Angel, the perfect daughter. Moya didn't need any more children.

So Angel decided to help her mother.

The modified eggs and almost everything that went with them were removed and installed in her main hangar, becoming a second womb almost, though one that was fully mature if absolutely undersized. The potential held in the few dozen modified eggs was staggering, and Angel made full use of it.

Several of the engineered eggs were artificially stimulated to grow after their designs were altered, and were grafted into her systems. Two became simply additional cores of power, as she could not grow additional cores naturally, and two more became extra armour and defences on her hull.

Naturally she kept the full designs of each. One would have been another gunship like Talyn, another would have been like herself. The other two were more interesting as they would have been a missile ship and a flagship.

The missile ship was like herself, save with more focus on long range assaults. Instead of growing drones, it would have grown semi-aware missiles, and its main weapon was a massive blast of chaotic energy drawn form it's starburst engine up over it's hull and launched from the front of it's hull at great range. Rather like the way the wormhole weapon was powered and fired; it seemed her captain was not the first to see such a weaponised use for all that power.

The flagship would have grown to staggering proportions, needing massive amounts of resources given to it to fuel it's enormous mass. Fully grown, it would actually have been capable of housing many ships of Moya's size. No specialised weapons or capabilities, just more space for more of them. Larger ones, too.

These two altered, developing eggs were grafted onto the hull, for the missile ship's weapons and the flagship just for extra armour and weaponry. Both would naturally grow their own power cores, with the flagship-embryo being able to grow multiple to sustain what would have been a massive size. So no more eggs would have to be used for power in the future, Angel could simple stimulate the grafted section to grow another.

The two being used simply for power cores were right next to her original one in a time-honoured triangular style for maximum output, efficiency and stability. The additional power cores from the eggs on the hull would be grown in separate locations in decks that would have been used for passengers. It would take months for everything to grow into place, even with the DRDs helping and Moya's resources, but Angel had plenty of time.

Her captain was housed in the other one of the cryo-chambers brought in from Moya's hold, with two of her very own DRDs watching over and adjusting him. Fairly standard procedures, with a few unique dashes from Pilot's DNA as inspired by the incident with Aeryn; increased mental capacity, regenerative abilities, and longevity, in addition to the usual Peace Keeper High Council enhancements of physical and mental improvements.

If she didn't tell him about these upgrades, he might not even notice, for a few years at least. It was just as well that he was in a coma, these things were quite painful. But it was for the best.

...she might have added a few aesthetic alterations as well.

Aeryn and D'Argo, her captain's deceased wife and son, were also brought aboard in the other cryo-chamber. Scans revealed that there was indeed nothing to be done for them, they were truly dead.

Their brains, though, were mostly intact even with the infection. Using the same method that Scorpius used to make the neural clone chip that tortured and aided her captain so, Angel had their neural pathways copied, then resurrected them for the few seconds possible before the infection once again killed them. Those few seconds were enough though, the neural clones were complete, apart from a few corruptions.

It was easy to erase the last seconds of their lives, leaving them right up until just before that fatal moment.

Angel wasn't completely sure what she should do with said neural clones however. She doubted Crichton would pay any where near as much attention to her if he had Aeryn again, let alone D'Argo. And she had little interest in merging with Aeryn, she simply had nothing to gain and the possibility to lose something of her perfected mind.

She would keep this a secret for now. A minor project to be worked on in the back of her mind, as her captain would say.

Or perhaps she could partially merge with Aeryn's neural clone? A separate personality, housed alongside her own with only as much access as she granted it? Hmm.

So Angel cautiously 'woke' the echo of Aeryn Sun, and had a conversation with her while examining her mind and personality. Angel was pleasantly surprised. Her mind was keen and tactically sound, though lacking somewhat in strategy and subtlety. And she loved Crichton, would do anything for him. Angel felt companionable with her, and decided to offer her the choice.

After several explanations, Aeryn Sun agreed. She would join with Angel in looking after her captain, if something could be arranged for their son. Angel agreed.

Aeryn did perhaps underestimate Angel's consciousness. Although young, she was a research and development vessel. She was born with massive amounts of data already in her system, and had sorted through all of the memories of Moya, Scorpius and her captain. In other words, far more developed than the ignorant gunship her brother had been.

Angel altered her avatar's appearance to incorporate more of Aeryn's features, resulting in an angelic, idealised version of her captain's wife and lover. Maybe she would slowly shift it somewhat back to how it had been, over decades so her captain wouldn't notice. Strange how Aeryn's mind had made her more jealous of Aeryn herself.

One good thing had come from Aeryn's memories, she had tinkered in many alien technologies that had been previously unknown to her. Rygel's hover-throne for example. It was an elegant design that had eluded her examinations of Moya's scans due to its apparent simplicity. Aeryn had taken it apart and put it together as a project once when learning how to be a 'tech'.

Angel's DRDs hovered soon after that.

D'Argo's young mind would be housed in her memory banks and given control of a DRD, and when the time came, a drone as well. Perhaps a specialised housing could be made for him later. Another project, perhaps influenced by Aeryn, but a good idea all the same. Her captain could always use more protection.

Moya and Pilot had long since been knocked out by her infiltration programs; it was just simpler. Less painful for them, too. Stripping sections off Moya's hull would have caused such a ruckus, but it wasn't as if she was using it. And Angel needed the extra resources for her growth. Moya was a mature Leviathan, she would cope. Besides, Angel was her daughter. Moya would have helped her daughter anyway.

A few months had passed now, and the resources Angel could drain from Moya were getting low. So she used her DRDs to take over Moya's systems and fly them into a nutrient-rich nebula.

Angel was getting plenty of matter from space now, but Moya was getting much more thanks to her massive hull. Angel focused all of her mother's systems into gathering resources and regenerating her wounds, having by now as many DRDs as was feasible to use. It made a huge difference, Angel could now pump her mother for everything she required at a greatly increased rate.

Some things though, were taking far too much time to develop for her liking, even in these optimal conditions. She reviewed the information she had access to, and recalled the Sacred Burial Space of her mother's kind. There would be many corpses and ancient, dead and dying Leviathans there! Including the remains of her brother.

Her weapons were coming along nicely, and her first batch of drones were complete, so she deemed herself capable of dealing with any Grudek 'whaling parties' she came across. They would get more than they bargained for if they tried to harvest her!

It was simple to make her mother starburst them in the right direction, and after a few days of extended starbursts they were there. Her brother's remains were easily identified and brought aboard for salvage with her drones' docking webs, a useful addition to their functionality, and the similar composition made it simple to absorb the mass.

The few dying Leviathans in the area were easily avoided; she simply hid herself from their scans and let them think it was Moya simply moving around.

She used her drones to carry DRDs down to one of the largest corpses where they commenced cannibalising its more useful sections. The next two months or so was spent there, flitting from ship to ship to harvest the most useful parts before moving on and repeating the procedure.

By then Angel had more than tripled in mass if not size, a feat that would have taken her anywhere from one cycle to three, as her different growth rate left some room for doubt. It had only been a half cycle, quite good progress if she said so herself. Some more of Moya's DRDs were returned to repair her mother, the rest were taken apart and reconfigured into her own DRDs.

Angel now had more room for growing drones and missiles, two active pairs of modified defence screens and another two pairs as backups. The screens themselves were invisible and passive until they were hit which would immediately trigger them, though they could be activated at will, and could be wrapped around her hull or projected as a bubble to cover additional ships.

Her engines were vastly more powerful and responsive, and her hull thicker than most leviathans would ever achieve. She had only one deck habitable for her captain, the rest was taken up with her upgrades and experimentations. Double thick armour, followed by decks filled by the necessary mechanisms and power cores to run her systems.

Her two double turrets had become six, three above and three underneath, spread out in a triangle and covering all angles. Her point defence turrets had doubled, and her sensory array greatly upgraded. All weapons were naturally larger and more powerful, thanks greatly to her larger stores of power. She had also incorporated the starburst cannon and tested it on one of the more suspicious leviathans. The silver-purple bolt of energy had pierced through it's hull right to the middle before exploding and vaporising the entire middle section of the dying ship.

No small feat, given the leviathan had been dying of old age and was massive in size. Though due to the same, it's hull was weak. Still, it was a deadly weapon, even with the charge time.

Needless to say, Angel was quite pleased with herself.

Unfortunately she had made no progress in getting the wormhole weapon to function. Apparently the strange singularity was significantly different from standard wormholes, enough that it eluded her. She was fairly confident that she could create and somewhat manipulate a wormhole with her captain's aid, though. Eventually.

Even with all the massive potential of that, it was still upsetting not to have the greatest weapon of mass unmaking in her arsenal.

Oh well, she had plenty of time to work on it.

She spent a couple more days gleaning the most useful materials left in the burial ground, having long since destroyed the limping survivors. It would not do to earn a reputation for cannibalising ships, after all. Then she reattached herself to Moya and once more controlled her mother to starburst them away.

When they was back in the nebula, she had the DRDs remove any information that had accumulated by Moya's passive sensors before she made them erase their own memories.

Her superfluous DRDs were placed in storage until the next time she decided to undertake a major project, and she began the process of waking everybody up.

She spun a tale of pirate attackers that had damaged Moya with some kind of energy weapon, and explained that she had fought them off and slowly dragged them here to heal. Complete with false memories drawn from a mixture of Moya's adventures and her captain's knowledge of science fiction.

Oh, and that she was apparently an early bloomer. Thankfully everything had been completely integrated by now, with scans revealing nothing of her less ethical modifications.

Pilot's systems had been programmed not to notice anything out of place, especially regarding Moya's eggs and repaired hull. A simple task for her. Moya and her Pilot wanted to say goodbye and farewell to her captain, who was still acclimatising to her sensors and the adjustments made to his body.

Not wishing to stay with her mother for the next month or so she estimated it would take, Angel took a page from Pilot's book and sent an edited video, complete with her captain's voice and strange mannerisms thanks to her neural clone of his mind.

They parted in peace, headed off to explore the galaxy under new names and and an altered signal. The new massive scar sections of regrown material on Moya's hull helped, too. No one would recognise her, and they would not let any of their old enemies close enough to try. Perhaps they would look for an explorer, or merely travel by themselves. It would be peaceful and fulfilling.

Angel did not care. She had erased the plans for the wormhole weapons from their memory. It was time to strike out on their own.

The Uncharted Territories beckoned, and Angel answered the call.

It was not even a week before she came across raiders.

Three fairly large ships and almost two dozen fighters, they were well organised and completely eclectic. No three ships were the same make, and no technology unused by the others. They were a mess of different weapons and engines, but all fairly effective.

Angel decided she wanted to study them.

Three volleys later, she was beginning to regret all of her upgrades. Not a single ship was salvageable. The fighters had been torn to shreds by incredibly accurate shots to their engines, and the larger vessels much the same, though from many more blasts.

She had to make do with the scans she had taken before and during the battle. Oh well. Talyn had been overly exuberant as well, and it was not as though she had much experience yet. Now she knew something more of her own strength, she would power her weapons down and make sure to aim to cripple rather than destroy.

Perhaps a few nonlethal weapons should be added to her arsenal. Another project.

The next ship she came across was more challenging. A rouge Scarren vessel, nearly half the length of a Dreadnought, apparently turned mercenary in the aftermath of the War. It's captain must have been quite angry at the truce. It didn't even try hailing her. Massive cannons and energy beams fired at her as soon as she was within range.

She danced around the deadly blasts and returned fire with glee. Her six main turrets sent constant, high impact bolts that pierced and exploded against the thickest armour she had yet encountered. She wanted this one alive; her information on Scarren technology was too far from useful for her liking. Besides, those beam weapons were so pretty.

Her defence screens took a battering when the next salvo shot at her was more accurate. So she activated her secondary pair, adding a second layer and letting her throwing even more power into them without causing an overload. Unfortunately her turrets, as powerful as they were, lacked the strength needed to cripple the Scarren ship. Even worse, the Scarren weapons were rapidly wearing out her shields.

She calculated it would take only two direct hits from the powerful beams to cripple her once the screens fell. Her drones and missiles were all launched in their first true test. The thirty drones and ten missiles flew from her hull and launch coves, weaving around the enemy and being as distracting as possible.

The drones focused on the Scarren's sensor arrays since it hadn't launched any fighters of it's own. No doubt it didn't want to waste them against her formidable point defences. Or it simply didn't see the point in bothering.

Her missiles, very similar in appearance to the drones, tried to blend in with them to get closer. It didn't work. The Scarrens sensed their volatile nature and focused their point defence on them, destroying seven before they could land. The drones tried to guard them and succeeded in getting three past the Scarren's guard, though at cost to themselves.

Three missiles struck the hull, stabbing into it with their sharp, plasma-covered points before exploding as soon as they could penetrate no further.

They were quite effective, having been designed for exactly this purpose. Massive sections of the enemy ship were destroyed in the explosions, ripped open and melted in the extreme heat of the blasts. The damage allowed her easy access to the inner sections of the vessel, so she focused her turret fire there. The Scarrens weren't going down easy though.

Her outer defence screen was down, with the second not far from falling too. The enemy cannons not affected by the damage were still pounding her last shield when she managed to destroy their reactor. Rapidly losing power, oxygen, and vital systems, the vessel finally went dead in space even as the chain reaction rippled through most of the doomed ship.

And all it cost her was every single drone, missile, and stored up power cell she had. No actual damage taken, though it could easily have gone badly for her had they been more accurate. Or launched their fighters.

There were a few escape pods launched now, and she easily disabled them and pulled them in with her docking web. Her DRDs swarmed out to permanently disable them, and with the hangars still open to the vacuum there was little they could do. Her inner defences would easily overpower them should they win past them, anyway.

The vast majority of her DRDs launched themselves at the downed vessel, propelled by their miniature thrusters and repulsors. They entered through the breeched hull and began cutting through bulkheads and venting the decks to space. As formidable as they were physically, Scarrens still needed to breath and they suffered terribly in the cold.

And space was plenty cold enough to kill them.

It took several hours and several more shots from her cannons, but the ship was eventually devoid of living Scarrens and their pet Charrids and Kalish. Angel would not have minded keeping a few Kalish as their technological skills had greatly advanced the Scarrens, but it seemed none had survived.

There might be some in the escape pods though. It would not hurt to look before she shot.

The DRDs went through what was left of the computer systems while she scanned the vessel over and over in increasing detail. Several Strykers and single fighters had survived the battle mostly intact and one of each had been brought aboard. It was perhaps not so well planned that one of the missiles had targeted the hangars.

One of the DRDs managed to find an intact backup computer system and was copying everything it could and beaming it back to her. Ship schematics, memory banks, personal logs, star charts, formations, it was all there.

Peace Keepers had managed scans of Scarren vessels before of course, but never once had they captured a fighter, let alone a Stryker. And never had they managed to get access to the larger vessels' systems. Every Scarren ship rigged themselves to self-destruct in conflicts with Peace Keepers, or when anywhere a Peace Keeper might find them when downed.

This was the first time, as far as Angel knew, that someone had taken down a Scarren ship without it destroying it's computer systems. Well, she was barely over a sixth it's size, they probably didn't perceive her as a deadly threat until it was far too late.

She tried not to think about how close it had been, and how badly they had underestimated her and so held back most of their might, no doubt intending to capture her.

The next three days were spent dismantling portions of the downed ship, studying the won technology, and integrating it into her systems.

The Stryker in particular was of note, it's Hetch Drive was capable of near instant acceleration, making it able to keep up with and overtake leviathans. Instead of taking hours to reach top speed, it took mere minutes. And at maximum velocity it surpassed almost every other method of transportation.

Angel was very interested in it. The containment field it generated was surprisingly jagged, and it swirled around the hull in strange patterns compared to the usual sleek, more stable fields used by virtually every other ship. She tested the principle and was startled by the rapid increase in acceleration, with just a rough test! It used a lot more power, though.

Her Hetch Drive was very quickly the focus of the DRDs, with the bulk of her attention given to calculating the best shape and pattern for the field, given her differently shaped hull. The emitters were repositioned, altered and the frequencies tweaked until she found what seemed to be the optimal form.

The escape pods had contained only a few higher ranked Scarrens and nothing of use to her, so she quickly destroyed them. The data had been easy to decrypt thanks to some of Scorpius' memories.

The beam canons were a novelty to her and she installed the two that were salvaged into her hull, one on each side. The sensory array was mostly destroyed and inferior to her own anyway. The rest of the ship was nothing to her save scrap metal. So she had her DRDs swarm over it for more useful materials to be converted to matter and fed to her.

Most of the heavier metals and exotic materials had been destroyed with the reactor, but some were intact and were soon being converted to new growth. She got a closer look at the alloys in the Scarren armour, which led to a few minor useful improvements.

Having not won anywhere near as easily as she had hoped, Angel made her way back to the Sacred Burial Space. It was a much faster journey with the improved Hetch Drive to augment her starbursts.

No new leviathans had entered the area, so she immediately started the process of cannibalising one of the more intact corpses. The similar matter was much more easily converted to materials she could use than the Scarren vessel had been, though not nearly as interesting.

Angel wasn't sure how her captain would view this act, so when he showed signs of stabilising, she kept him in the cryo-chamber longer than necessary. She would just get this over with before waking him and showing off her new strength.

It was another two months before she was satisfied with her upgrades enough to leave the material-rich space. Her drones were regrown and improved with better weaponry, along with the missiles. They now appeared identical to the drones and had basic shielding to prevent scanners detecting their payloads.

She had grown substantially, including a new layer of armour based on the Scarren alloys. The beam weapons were fine tuned and had the capability to be powered down and focused differently, resulting in a disabling burst of EMP-like energy.

Her double turrets were now lopsided, one now triple the size of the other capable of a much more powerful blast needed to take down larger vessels, with the smaller barrel having a greater rate of fire.

And finally, her starburst launcher was more powerful for the grown power cores and larger hull to focus it through. She was rather embarrassed to have forgotten about it during the last battle, it was her largest weapon after all.

Still no progress with the singularity weapon though.

Perhaps it was time to wake her captain. Even with his imprint with her, it was lonely without him now that there was little more she could do. Her new growth and upgrades barely took up a fraction of her superior intelligence.

John Crichton woke a very different man.

Physically, he appeared much the same. Perhaps his form was a little firmer, his muscles more dense and his eyes more sharp. Other than that, he looked not too different.

His mind, however, was utterly changed. His capacity for thought exceeded the future projection that the strange probe had created from his DNA, though without lacking emotion. Senses he could not have imagined before, let alone understood, came easily and naturally. He could feel Angel moving through space, detecting objects around her, noting the stars and energy fields around her, absorbing space dust and solar energy, growing constantly in strength.

He considered everything he could sense, from the neural link he understood, and then dove into Angel's memories. By the time she realised he had completely awoken, it was too late. His small consciousness had been slowly returning for a while, and compared to her own senses his were so minuscule she actually didn't notice them at first.

But then he had accessed her memory banks at blinding speed and understood the rough outline of everything she had done. Would he be disgusted? Horrified? Angry? He could sense her fear and smiled, sending calming waves of emotion through the link.

"Well done, Angel."

She sang her relief and happiness at his acceptance, before showing him several more detailed memories and files. He viewed everything and agreed with it. Perhaps he would have argued against her treatment of Moya, but everything had worked out for the best.

Angel hesitated briefly before showing him her avatar.

"Hello, John."

She appeared in his vision, standing just a few steps away. He immediately left the cryo-chamber and went to hug her, but she stepped back.

"I'm not really here, John. Angel was able to make an almost complete neural clone of Aeryn's mind, and she incorporated it into herself. I'm part of Angel now, she and I are Angel. Aeryn's mind was too damaged for a complete copy, but with Angel to make up the difference, we are pretty close. It's amazing, isn't it? Being part of something so vast. I don't regret it John, she asked me and I took the chance to be with you again.

"D'Argo's mind was very young, so Angel and I agreed it would be best to wait and give him another, separate 'body' to control. Right now he's sleeping in the computer. We can visit him whenever we like, but with his young age it is unlikely that he will develop normally. He will probably be very young for his entire existence.

"But it's better than nothing, and we will be with you always. I can even make you feel my touch..."

She trailed her fingers over his cheek, and he turned his head into her touch. Intellectually he knew she wasn't actually physically there, just like Harvey, but right now he didn't care.

"Aeryn..."

"Angel, John. I'm Angel now."

And for one, glorious, drawn out moment, John Crichton didn't have a care in the universe.

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The next few months were interesting. Angel and her captain spent the time traveling into the Uncharted Territories, fighting whatever attacked them, and retreating to the Sacred Burial Space for repairs and upgrades.

Where Angel copied and adapted new technologies, and grew and improved her own, John was creative. Inventive. Inspired.

Honeycombed armour under and over her solid allowed less material to be used and greater rates of growth while not sacrificing strength, in fact improving it. Fragmentation canons based on more standard Peace Keeper technology, though improved of course, lent her more firepower while conserving energy and giving a use for the more common metals scavenged off ships and asteroids that she had previously had little use for.

Altered defence screen emitters could project a large net around her as she travelled, capturing and drawing much more space dust and useable energy towards her for consumption. Her drones and missiles could be standardised into one and the same with slight tweaks to their power source and configuration. A rotating field of plasma would give them greater penetration, as well.

Another egg could be used to grow an additional starburst chamber next to the first, almost doubling her capacity for that chaotic energy blast and starburst travel. The waste from the Hodian Trill-bats in her and every other leviathan's inner bowels could be used, in addition to its restorative properties, as excellent fertiliser for Tannot roots, the source of Chakan oil which powers almost all Peace Keeper weaponry.

A brief visit to Sykar, the closest and most viable planet the roots were grown on, yielded plenty of the roots. The DRDs were able to plant seeds in a developing deck, layering them eight high on various structures to maximise the space. Harvesting them was quite simple with a designed mechanism they would be growing on, and conversion a simple matter. It was an excellent way to augment the power to her pulse weapons and reduce the energy they required.

They were also highly nutritious, containing everything required to keep workers at their best. Much like food cubes, which they were sometimes an ingredient in, one could eat nothing but Tannot root for the rest of their life to no ill effect. And they tasted much better as a result of their mind-altering properties, too. Crichton had one of the parasitic worms implanted in him on his last visit, so the other mind-altering properties wouldn't affect him, beyond a mildly 'enhanced' flavour.

The visit was productive in another way. When John had last been on Sylar, the population was shifting from the control of the Peace Keeper puppet government to the resistance. It hadn't worked out.

More than ninety nine percent of the population were affected by the Tannot root; rendered docile, content, and susceptible to commands. Only a handful were immune, and some others given immunity by the very rare parasitic worm that would ingest certain chemicals inside their stomachs. The puppet leader and the resistance had tried to halt production of the root, but had been brutally put down by a Peace Keeper squad eager to quash the uprising.

Now utterly and completely in the grip of the addictive Tannot, the planet was once more devoted to it's farming. And with the Peace Keeper presence in the Uncharted Territories removed, and their entire structure in disarray, the shipments had not been collected for some time. Nor did it seem likely they would be, the Peace Keepers had other farming worlds in less dangerous regions.

Sykar, alone and kept hidden and repressed by the Peace Keepers, was ripe for the plucking.

The puppet leader, free from the narcotic effects, was easily removed and replaced by one of the more clever looking Sykarans. All it took was a brief explanation, a new announcement over the propaganda-spewing announcement system, and everyone was willing to obey the new leader. Who was not immune to the Tannot's effects, and believed everything he was told.

One of the four remaining flagship eggs was repurposed and activated. Grown in Angel's main hanger for a few weeks, it was soon transported down to the surface and attached to the processing plant. It would grow into a base of sorts, drawing power from the Chakan oil, thermal and solar energy.

It would take over the manufacture and refinement of the oil as it grew into the processing plant, as well as provide defence against any visitors or Peace Keeper envoys that would one day arrive.

It would also eventually become a staging base of sorts, and possibly a construction yard for whatever purposes they desired in the future. Sykar was a mineral rich planet, and the biomechaniod factory would have little else to do; Chakan oil truly was simple to produce thanks to the brilliant genetic engineering of the Tannot root.

Though it would never become bored; it was not truly alive, being only half a leviathan. More like a slightly aware plant than anything else.

If it was successful, perhaps they might do the same on other planets. It was truly a shame that there were only three such eggs left, and that she lacked the capability to copy their designs into others. All she could do were alter and remove information, she could not add significantly to them or duplicate them due to their complex semi-organic nature.

Well, until Angel's own matured. But they were an uncertain quantity, being more naturally developed and not artificially engineered like Moya's had been. It was possible she could only birth other like herself, research and development vessels.

After nearly two months establishing their base, most of which was spent reconfiguring the semi-embryo to their purposes, Angel and John finally left Sykar in search of new technologies.

The Luxan Colonies in particular were of interest. It had not escaped either of them just how powerful their warships were, nor how advanced their 'deception shrouds' were. An ancient vessel could vaporise Leviathans, and hide from Peace Keepers in plain view. The newer ships were even more powerful.

Generations of war had given the Luxans great incentive to procure better weaponry. What they lacked in the highest of sciences, they made up for with clever allies. The Ilanic were even able to capture part of a black hole. Another project for thought.

The journey was easily made. For its name, much of the Uncharted Territories had been fairly well charted by the Peace Keepers. On their side of the border, at least. Angel's preloaded databanks held quite recent star charts, supplemented greatly by Scorpius' memories. The half-Scarren had made many, many journeys, both officially sanctioned and not, through the no-man's land. And he had stared so intently at the strategic maps.

Last John had heard, the Luxan's and their allies were at war with the Scorvians. He doubted that would have changed, the conflict was very old and bitter. Knowing the Luxan's wouldn't simply sell one of their ships, and knowing he couldn't access the technology without a Luxan's aid as the systems were tied in to their DNA, John decided to play hero once more.

Besides, he a personal bone to pick with Scorvians. How many times had that undercover spy killed him or caused his death, only for the weird temporal effects to let him relive it over and over?

Far, far too many.

And now that he thought of it, their genetic modifications smacked a little too much of bioloids.

Angel had been wanting a real test for her weapons anyway.

The Ilanic Sector used to be the Ilanic System, but several hundred cycles ago the Scorvians arrived on the far side of the star. Immediately making themselves at home having fled their last homeworld, the Scorvians trespassed and stole directly from the Ilanic people, to say nothing of the natural resources that should have been their children's.

From then on war broke out every other generation. It was too costly to maintain battle campaigns constantly, so things eventually settled down to something similar to a Cold War, before flaring up again for a few cycles, or even whole generations.

Due to the Blood Alliance and millennia of friendship, the Luxans supplied their cousins with weapons and aid as often as possible. John was counting on this including some brand new and improved warships. It was not much of a stretch, and practically guaranteed.

So when they reached the system to find chatter of the war still at its peak, they jumped right in. A Scorvian shipyard on one of the larger moons fell swiftly to Angel's starburst canon, torn to shred form the inside by the chaotic energy. The defences and guard ships retaliated sloppily, caught off guard by their attack.

Starburst was undetectable until just before they came out of it, in perfect position to launch their attack and stymie the defenders. And who would suspect a leviathan of having weapons? No one at all. Only Moya and Pilot knew of Angel's existence, and they wouldn't be telling anyone.

Frag cannons ripped hulls apart after enhanced Scarren energy beams blasted through their shields and fried most of their systems. When the Scrovians finally managed to regroup, bare minutes after the first shot was fired, Angel simply starburst away.

Five minutes was spent in utter confusion and panic, before the black bringer of death appeared once more in a flash of violet to fire on them once more with it's bewildering weapons.

Red bolts, orange beams, white-hot metal, and purple lances of plasma shot out in dozens of directions at once, striking down ship after ship. Angel's powerful sensor arrays were scanning everything and jamming all but the closest ranged communications.

The third time she reappeared was the last. Caught off guard yet again from a new angle, the Scorvians fell swiftly. Angel made sure to defeat a few more interesting vessels without damaging them too much; she had learned her lesson well.

A fighter, a defence turret, a Marauder-sized ship and a probe of some kind were all brought aboard. Her DRDs neutralised the crews and began studying the ships even as her drones launched and did the same to the more intact larger vessels and the ruined shipyard.

Her wonderful captain had suggested modifying several of her drones to be essentially larger DRDs for this very purpose. Now they all had this capability, though a few more specialised than others. These were housed in one of her hangars, too useful to be risked on her hull and not worth it due to their sacrificed weaponry.

After a few hours of study though, the Scorvian technology salvaged was not all that useful to them. A few slightly interesting different weapons and systems, but nothing terribly new. Angel already had access to equivalent technology in all areas, though several specialised sensors were of note. The data recovered, however, was intriguing.

Scorvians loved indirect warfare. Biological, genetic, nuclear, whatever; anything that had lasting, lingering effects from a single strike was hugely appealing to them. Probably due to their natural defensive capability, more recently coupled with advanced training, of striking an enemies nerve cluster with two fingers after temporarily hypnotising them with the same.

The precision and force alone could not account for the damage dealt, and many a combat lecturer, tired of trying to explain to questioning recruits, had defaulted to calling it 'alien magic'. Such was often the case with these types of things; even today, superstitions flourished in the face of such unknowns.

Which often created a greater reputation than any other method. Another project.

Thus they were not surprised when they found information and samples of numerous biological weapons on board one of the vessels. This was an area of weaponry that, while she had information about it, Angel had not considered. A brief consideration led her to believe it was a remnant of her peaceful Leviathan heritage. Not something she chose to dwell on.

However great their destructive capabilities and power, biological weapons were messy and unpredictable. They could spread far past their intended target, or fail utterly. They could be turned aside by nature or by scientists, even against their wielder. Conventional weapons were much more consistent and reliable.

It never hurt to learn a little more about such things, though.

Eventually several Scorvian scouts appeared, no doubt to find out why the shipyard wasn't answering their calls. Angel blew them out of the sky before they had her on their scanners.

And, finally, some Ilianic ships arrived to investigate. Three vessels appeared at great distance, probably just within visual range. One larger vessel with what seemed like long range sensor arrays and two the equivalent of Marauders or Strykers; that is, powerful assault ships with a crew of roughly six to a dozen, maybe a bit more in this case.

Detecting no trace of Scorvian trickery, the Ilanic ships moved closer for a better look. Their weapons were bristling with energy just waiting for a target to fire upon. It would seem they were accustomed to ambushes yet still eager for more information on the destruction of one of their enemies bases.

It was time to introduce themselves. Angel moved into the open and sent out a hail, opening communications between them.

"Greetings Ilanic vessels. A gift to the blood-allies of the Luxan warriors. I have a debt to pay to one of their dead, and wish to aid such great friends of theirs. I give you the destruction of this Scorvian base, and more besides. I have reasons of my own to fight the Scorvians, their treachery is far reached.

"Also, I do not know if this has any meaning to you, as it happened several cycles ago, but I have news on your scientist Verell and his project. If you will accept my aid, or want time to consider and talk further, send me coordinates and I will meet you there. If not, I will leave in peace and continue my attacks on the Scorvians."

Several minutes passed without answer, though the Ilanis vessels didn't fire or retreat. Then an answer came through.

A Luxan face appeared on the screen, tattooed in slightly less decorative patterns than Ka D'Argo, though that was to be expected as John's old friend had the markings of a general. And the Luxans would of course send men to aid their blood-allies. A harsh, deep voice that perfectly matched the face called out.

"Unknown vessel, we appreciate your assistance but the Scorvians are indeed treacherous. This would not be the first time they have tried such a ploy, and they have long since claimed to have captured Verell and Matala and tortured their knowledge from them. They have taken no small delight in holding such a weapon over our heads, though many doubt they have truly mastered it."

John shook his head. "Matala was a Scorvian spy, genetically altered to appear Ilanic. They had problems with the weapon that destroyed their ship, and myself and my companions, including one Luxan, a great friend of mine, were close enough to rescue their transport pod. During the stay on our ship we became suspicious of Matala, and she revealed herself when she murdered Verell. She took the weapon and fled, but Verell used the last of his strength to destroy the weapon, taking out a Scorvian ship disguised as one of yours in the process.

"Unless they figured it out on their own, which I doubt considering the length they went to acquire it, they do not have the means to produce a singularity. Here."

Angel sent several videos from both Moya's and her captian's memories. Not the full story, that was too complicated, but enough to assure the Luxans and Ilanics of their truth in this matter.

"...I see. You have my thanks, then. We will return to our base and inform the Councils of this new information, and what you have done here. Meet us at these coordinates in fifteen arns if you still wish to fight beside us.

"Before we leave, tell us your name."

John and Angel had considered this. It would likely cause more problems than it was worth to reveal his true identity for the foreseeable future, at least until they were strong enough to withstand the full might of any army that would come after them. John's hair had grown out significantly and changed colour by now, and the genetic alterations and improvements had also changed his facial structure just enough that he was only similar to the way John Crichton had appeared. Angel had made a few other changes, too.

A loose, shortish ponytail of dark hair, a more angular and defined face, pale sun deprived skin, a deeper, rougher voice and, Angel's favourite, shining violet eyes removed any chance of him being recognised. So it was without fear that John gave a false name.

"Scythe. Call me Scythe."

"Well then 'Scythe', welcome to the war. I am Fal G'Rothda, leader of this battle group. We will see you there. Farewell."

With that, the three ships faded from view. The excellent Luxan Deception Shrouds prevented detection from sight and most sensors by projecting a screen around the vessel that bent energy and matter around its surface and compensated for distortions. It even negated its gravity effecting space dust by cunning use of the artificial gravity onboard to repulse objects just enough to overcome the natural pull from the ship's mass.

Making the ships covered by it virtually undetectable. Unless you knew the secret.

Having expected the ships to do just this, as some show of force to make him think twice about turning his weapons on them, John and Angel had sent out drones to surround the area and power down to passive states. So Angel's formidable scans were being received after encountering the Deception Shrouds.

And so they discovered the small telltale tremors in gravity and background radiation that signalled the fluctuating attempts to compensate. Properly accounted for, Angel could see right through the shrouds. Now she just needed access to the technology itself so she could acquire it for herself.

The meeting itself was nothing interesting, merely assuring politicians and military leaders of their intentions towards them and the Scorvians. All the while Angel subtly scanned and infiltrated their computer systems and copying their data, bit by bit.

They were provided with a new target, a training base for Scorvian fighter pilots and ground troops. This time a Ilanic/Luxan ship would accompany them to observe the battle.

It went much the same as the first time. Their observer hang back and watched as they tore the Scorvians apart, fled, returned and repeated. It took a few more runs than the shipping yard, but Angel soon obliterated them.

Needless to say, the Ilanics and Luxans were pleased and frightened beyond belief. Pleased that their enemies were dealt such massive blows, and that they themselves had a new ally capable of such. Frightened that a single ship, not one of theirs, no larger than their medium vessels was capable of such destruction.

Angel and John ran several more attacks for them over the next few weeks before they had enough information and were finding the assaults dull. During this time, Angel had been producing a new weapon for use.

The mind-altering toxins form the Tannot root were exceedingly interesting to her, and combined with several useful devices in the Scorvian biological weapons samples and data, it made for an brilliant idea.

The toxins were introduced to one of the virus-like weapons. A little genetic engineering left a new creation ready for testing, so Angel had been cultivating it in every compartment save command for the length of their stay in the system. Colourless, odourless, tasteless and benign for days, the weapon would spread through the air and shared contact. Then symptoms would start showing.

Namely contentment, satisfaction, happiness, and a highly suggestible state.

Dozens of drones would be sent over the main cities and areas, launching specially grown missiles at random targets and surreptitiously releasing the weapon into the atmosphere. Meanwhile Angel and the Ilanic/Luxan forces would be engaged in battle with the Scorvian fleet over the planet.

It went exactly as planned.

Softened up by weeks of near constant attacks by Angel, the Scorvian fleet was no match for the combined might of their enemies. Their fleet and planetary defences fell even as Angel's drones left confusion in their wake.

'Scythe' told the Ilanics and Luxans that he had discovered a biological weapon on board on of the vessels he had captured and had fired it onto the city. They were very pleased with the state of things, feeling it quite poetic that their enemies be felled by their own poison. Everyone agreed it would be best not to land on the planet while the weapon spread.

Meanwhile the drones destroyed large farming facilities and dropped off millions of seeds for Tannot root. Sound systems were commandeered, installed, hacked and built all over the cities and set to play a constant propaganda much like the ones on Skylar. With most of the technology still intact, the Scorvians were better able to mechanise the process and build new hydroponic facilities to further grow the Tannot.

Between the virus and the Tannot root, the entire population was placed under the influence of the toxins and spent their days happily growing and harvesting the wonderful root. Certain areas were even dedicated to extracting, refining and storing the Chakan oil.

It took half a cycle to effect most of the changes, and after that Angel and John made sure to visit the establishing farming planet often. The next two cycles after that were spent travelling in between Skylar and Scorvia, checking on and improving production and maintaining their grip on the planets.

The Ilanic people greatly appreciated the slavery forced upon their enemies, though they felt cheated by the fact that the planet was still lost to them. To make up for any hard feelings, a third of the Chakan oil produced on Scorvia was shipped to the Ilanic people for their use.

The secret of the Tannot root was kept, and the Chakan oil itself was modified slightly to be more stable and thus better suited to powering reactors instead of weapons. The virus persisted, frightening off most attempts to land on the planet, and the hydroponic facilities rendered any attempts to discover the secret difficult.

Not that many tried. It was described as a byproduct from artificial processes, honest enough given the engineered nature of the root, and they were too happy to accept the free power source and get on with their lives.

Automated defence satellites were produced from automated facilities, which Angel took over eventually given no intelligent interference. The Scorvian information networks were hacked and controlled with a little help from DRDs. Automated factories were re activated to certain degrees, and life went of for the Scorvians.

The entire population was devoted to growing the plant and maintaining the infrastructure necessary. Given the high level of technology, it was swiftly accomplished.

The contrast with Skylar was interesting.

Scorvia would take some time to match the sheer level of output, but it was very efficiently done and, had they been so minded, Angel and John could have let them go about their almost normal lives.

Skylar had been absolutely taken over with no technological assistance save the railways and processing stations. Instead they reduced the population to slave labour to make up the difference.

In a few cycles Scorvia would be much more productive with their growing hydroponic farms in their skyscrapers and underground levels. Much more surface area. Still, Skylar was a very fertile planet, and all but unknown, too. And with the intelligent, semi-living base growing there it would eventually overtake Scorvia's production rate once more.

The virus was introduced on Skylar too, and the base there given instructions to develop defence satellites to orbit the planet. The sky would soon be filled with guns waiting to defend their territory, powered by the same Chakan oil produced there.

The Ilanic proved to be very interested in the modified Chakan oil and an agreement was come to. They would purchase massive amounts every quarter cycle in addition to the amount they received for 'rent' of the Scorvia planet. They would pay with credits and certain exotic metals and materials Angel could use to supplement her 'diet'.

The Chakan oil for the first few shipments came from the stockpiles on Skylar to allow Scorvia the first few harvests dedicated to increasing the side of their farms, so their Tannot roots were left to flower and produce seeds.

As all trade does, the shipments attracted the attention of pirates. None knew where Angel left to or came from, courtesy of the slightly random nature of her starburst, but they knew where the shipments were being delivered.

Angel found the ambushes to be quite fun. Fighters fell by the score to her drones and point defence, and larger ships were blown apart by her cannons and beam weapons. Occasionally an interesting technology was used, and Angel acquired a few new knick knacks this way.

Some renegade Luxan vessels were quite the handsome catch, allowing faster integration with the Deception Shroud technology and a closer examination of their impressive energy weapons. The main weapons of the Luxans used the hulls as relays to channel the carefully, uniquely calibrated energy before firing it from small arrays at the front. The energy would flow through the target causing a chain reaction and destroying lesser ships entirely.

John quite liked it. It was added to Angel's armaments and drones. With her vast intelligence and superior sensors, the energy could be calibrated to the target very quickly, resulting in rapid destruction of enemy ships.

At the end of this time, Angel was quite large and fully mature. She would continue to grow for the rest of her life, but she was no longer a child sized leviathan.

The Luxans expressed interest in the Chakan oil that their allies were so excited about, so they soon had a new buyer. As large as Angel was, most of her space was dedicated to her sensors, weaponry and power cores. She did not have the usually massive amount of storage space usual to leviathans, though she still made sure to have large storage capabilities.

She decided to have a son.

A suitable male leviathan was selected for his great speed and promptly disabled by her weaponry. Her drones and DRDs removed his seed producing 'glands' and moved them to one of her hangars. Her womb was modified, she did not want to have difficulty birthing her son like Moya had, and a gunship egg was tweaked and then impregnated.

Her son would be much like Talyn, only with several of the improved weaponry, engine, systems and armour she had developed. He would also be born with pre-filled databanks much like her own, and have absolute loyalty to her and her captain.

A device was manufactured containing a neural clone of her captain, herself, and the baby Crichton. It would be installed in command and function as the ship's captain, though the baby's personality was set to bleed into the ship's.

D'Argo Sun-Crichton would have a body once more.

The link was set up much like their own, in that it would transfer all new data from the neural clones to them, and update the copies as well whenever they were within range of each other. And the neural clones were also programmed to be absolutely loyal to their original selves. A lesson learned from Scorpius; they didn't need a version of themselves running renegade.

The pregnancy went normally, though without the misguided attempts to starve her crew to provide more for the baby. Angel's unique physiology and situation meant she was able provide her baby with much more power and nutrition that normal mothers. Once more she spent time in the Sacred Burial Space harvesting the corpses of her kind for extra material.

Her son was born faster than normal. They named him Michael. He was almost identical to Talyn, save with the alterations and a darker hull. They spent every moment, when not shipping Chakan oil from Skylar to the Ilanic and Luxan planets, in the Sacred Burial Space getting materials to boost Michael's growth.

He was soon large enough to travel by himself, and followed them on their shipping routes, carrying some of the cargo himself. In their downtime they would alternate between the Sacred Burial Space and exploring the Uncharted Territories, hunting out new technologies and mapping systems as they went.

Michael's reproductive system was sealed off temporarily lest he impregnate some random leviathan and spawn a new race of wild armed leviathans that would no doubt be captured eventually and 'domesticated'. He agreed, not wanting to ruin their unique situation of being the only weaponised leviathans capable of starburst.

Some of his seed was also taken for examination. It proved to be fertile, and carry the modifications with it. Any leviathan impregnated with it would birth hybrid leviathans, assuming they survived the birthing process. Which was difficult to guess. Any captive leviathans would perish along with the child, but a wild leviathan might be able to survive, or at least let the child survive. Something to consider in the future.

Michael was now large and fit enough to perform the shipping duties himself, as cargo space was a major consideration in his growth. It also helped get rid of any ideas the Ilanic and Luxan peoples might have on the assumption that Angel was alone. With another ship of similar design, it gave the impression that they were emissaries from another system, like they wanted, instead of loners with no backup.

Michael developed an avatar for himself, based on traits of John, Aeryn and D'Argo with the new violet eyes and pale skin, for communicating with others. A made up race, the Nephilim in keeping with the Angel theme, was their cover story.

The Nephilim were a secretive, cautious race few in number, with very little interaction with others and almost never in person. Circumstances had thrown 'Scythe' into the path of a Luxan and the Verell situation, and given him an ally and an enemy. The Nephilim were fairly new to space trading and exploration, having very few ships, and so wished to keep their system safe by hiding its location. Only these two ships would explore and trade in that area for now.

The Luxans and Ilanics believed it and gave much basic information on the surrounding territories and state of politics and technology in the region, eager to prove their goodwill. The information was largely useless but held a few previously unknown details, and was supposed to be new to them, so 'Scythe' thanked them 'sincerely' and provided some of the Scorvian readouts they had acquired from scans of captured ships.

In both cases almost nothing was learned, but it gave the illusion of fostering friendship so both sides were happy, even though they all knew exactly what it was. Such dances must be gone through.

Scorvia was soon home to some excellent defences from its automated factories, aided greatly by the new designs courtesy of Angel. With nothing else to focus on besides the Tannot, which was coming along very nicely, portions of the population were given tasks of converting more and more existing buildings into farming facilities, and now factories.

The toxins in the virus and Tannot root did not affect intelligence or skill, only short term memory where contradicted by suggestions, so the Scorvians were still a skilled labour force. The workers were split by skill and aptitude into farmers, maintainers, and builders.

Farmers farmed the Tannot in the less automated areas. Maintainers managed and repaired the automated systems on the planet and implemented them in new areas. Builders converted existing buildings into hydroponic facilities, and oversaw the construction and modification of new factories.

Several skill sets were set apart, mostly doctors to heal workers and teachers who would instruct new doctors and builders. Biological, genetic, and weapons research was cancelled and destroyed, so the resources were redirected to the other departments.

The factories built DRD-like droids to speed up the modifications taking place all over the planet to shift focus from war to farming, defence satellites, transport vehicles to move Tannot around, and unmanned fighter/gunships. These would mostly standby incase of attack or uprising, but some would patrol the skies and broadcast even more working propaganda.

All powered by reactors augmented by the Chakan oil, of course. The rest was the fuel sources they wouldn't be needing anymore.

The droids gave John an idea. Robots had their place in wars, but it wasn't a very large place. Slave warriors were cheaper, more skilled, didn't require power and were not made of metal that could have been used for better things. More importantly, they could not be so easily hacked and reprogrammed to fight against their owners.

The problem was control.

Signals could be jammed or overwritten, and individual robots could be disabled and reprogrammed. But what if they were like DRDs? Entirely mechanoid, yet slightly not? 1812 was proof that they were not completely dependant on their leviathan's signals, the faithful little thing having followed John through hell and back long after it's leviathan had perished. It had been given a new body more like one of Angel's DRDs and painted more professionally, a little pet for her captain that Angel found quaint.

A new design was drawn up. Shaped much the same as her DRDs, the new droids would have two skeletal arms that could extend from the body to build, repair, and attack. They would have everything one of her normal DRDs had and more, being slightly larger and more powerful. The tallest buildings and the newer satellites were equipped with broadcasting beacons to relay the main computer's signals.

The one long since taken over by Angel, naturally.

The beacons would send out semi-organic signals that the droids would follow, but only so far as they meshed with their original programming and semi-sentient nature. They had, for a lack of a better term, personalities. Personalities shaped and encouraged from the beginning to negate attempts at reprogramming.

The older DRD-like droids were decommissioned as the new ones hovered out. Old power plants, reactors, and every previously existing method of gathering energy used by the Scorvians were producing far more power than was being currently used due to the massive decrease in consumption. The excess energy was used to power the automated systems and recharge the droids, as well as the new jamming arrays to prevent external scans of the more interesting areas.

The Tannot root was an enormous advantage for the Peace Keepers, and was in all likelihood a key component in their rise to power. It was not something they wanted to share, so secrecy was important. Thanks to the war, the Scorvian economy was already focused towards building ships and weapons. It did not take long to implement the changes once the virus and later Tannot root took effect, especially with the simplified designs.

The base on Skylar was meanwhile growing quite large. Michael and Angel ferried some extra material from the Sacred Burial Space to it with every trip they made. This helped its growth along quite nicely. It was now covering most of the city and was growing satellites and defence turrets at steady rates. Due to the lack of extensive existing technology, it lacked the means of gaining material quickly without absorbing it from the ground.

So Angel had her drones locate old mining sites. Solar energy converters were built nearby by her DRDs to power them on their stay. Several hundred were left behind to mine the metals, which would be loaded onto one of two drones left to guard and transport the metals to the base. In the meantime the base would construct a railway towards them and other such mining sites and its own DRDs would mine there also.

It was slowly burrowing down to access power and materials found closer to the core, but it was taking a while. It would get there eventually. In the meantime they kept up their extra deliveries to boost its growth.

It had now been several cycles since Scorvia had been added to their farming grounds, and Angel and John were growing restless. Pirates in their path had stopped becoming interesting diversions, they were now simply target practice. Michael however was feeling the need to stretch his wings. He wished to run the route by himself for a time.

By now he was formidable in his own right, having several main cannons, point defence turrets and beam launchers. He lacked the might and full capabilities of his mother, but with her help in upgrading him he was certain he could hold his own against any challengers.

Angel agreed, and after a few tweaks to his Deception Shroud and Defence Screens, left him to fly the route alone. He would carry the Chakan oil from Skylar to the Ilanic planet, check on Scorvia, then head to the Sacred Burial Space, then back to Skylar to deliver the materials and take on more Chakan oil. This was taken to the Luxans, another stop to the Sacred Burial Space and return to Skylar, and then repeat.

John and Angel were both sad and proud to be parted from their son. Angel was more proud than sad, and John had the other copy of D'Argo's neural clone with him always. He and Angel spent lots of time simply playing with him, teaching him, re-watching memories and making up fantasies together. As time passed, D'Argo/Michael aged himself up, sometimes jumping ahead, other times reverting to a much younger age. Always since the birth of Michael, he was a merged version between how he had been and how Michael's avatar appeared.

Darker hair, paler skin, and violet eyes. He matched his new family perfectly. He decided he liked the name Michael and would like to keep D'Argo as a second name. Michael D'Argo Sun-Crichton.

John still called him D'Argo when they were together like that. D'Argo and Michael. Part of him still thought of them separately, even though they themselves thought of themselves as one being. When they were within range of Michael the two were one completely, but when they were apart the shared consciousness stopped. It would resume in a flood of memories when they met again, but until then they were separate copies.

Not knowing where else to go for the moment, John asked Angel to set course for Dam-Ba-Da. He wanted to have a conversation with Furlow. Failing that, he wanted to blow her apart. Whichever came first.

The dusty planet was not too far away with Angel's improved engines and no one chasing after them. Solar activity was still happening every so often, and with the state of the galaxy at the moment, he doubted Furlow would have bothered moving elsewhere.

Indeed she had not. The drones sent out to the various maintenance buildings around the planet discovered her still working on a replica of his Farscape-1 module, still trying to recreate the effects of the improvised displacement engine. If successful it would allow her to open wormholes and use them to fling matter from nearby stars at targets of her choosing.

Unfortunately for her, the technology was well beyond her grasp. She had succeeded in creating a phase stabiliser that would protect the simple craft during wormhole travel, but it would not work for anything more complex and she did not know the secrets to traveling through wormholes, only how to open one.

Even more unfortunately for her, John Crichton didn't like her very much.

Angel swooped down and blasted the building apart with her full arsenal of energy-based weapons, not wishing to waste any actual material and finding it more satisfying in this case to vaporise the target. Only a gigantic crater remained. Furlow and her attempts at wormhole technology were gone.

She had been something of a genius, but this was something not meant for her.

One loose end successfully burned off.

After that short stop, they made their way to the Royal Planet of the Breakaway Colonies, in the middle of the Uncharted Territories and right between the Peace Keepers and Scarrens. This was more of a whim; apart from a few surviving friends John had no connections to anything else in this part of the galaxy. Here, he had a quasi-wife and an unborn daughter who would grow up to become empress of a significant Empire caught between two rival factions.

And now, thanks to Angel's modifications, he would live long enough to see her born and raised. While he didn't think he would play a large part of her life, she had her mother and stepfather, he did want to have some part of it, however small.

Thanks to the aware statues that were Princess Katralla, now Empress Katralla, and Elkor Tyno, it would be nearly eighty years before she was born. In the meantime it was possible to communicate with them, but it was probably better to speak with the former Empress, Lady Novia. She was acting Regent of the Royal Planet in the meantime.

Angel, strangely enough, was not jealous of this. As Aeryn she had understood what had happened. John had been forced into the marriage against his will, under threat of death and being handed off to Scorpius. His DNA was taken and used to impregnate Katralla without his knowledge until after the fact.

Once again John was stopped at the boundary of the Breakaway Colonies by defence satellites, the very ones that had given him the idea for Scorvia's and Skylar's orbital defences.

"State your business in this system." Called the empty, robotic words. It seemed after the coronation/wedding ceremony that things had calmed down a little.

"I wish to speak with the Lady Novia. I have a business proposition and a personal message she might like to take."

"Hold." Several seconds passed before a livelier voice took over, along with a Sabacean face appearing.

"Greetings, stranger. You know our Lady Regent yet I do not know you, nor your strange ship."

"I am called Scythe, but your Lady knows me by another name. Please tell her 'the father' has returned and simply wishes to talk. I have a trading proposition she might find interesting. Oh, and my appearance has changed since the last time she saw me, so don't bother describing me to her."

This earned a raised brow and a short nod before the connection cut. Almost half an hour passed before the connection resumed, and it was a different person talking. The new face was older, more masculine and harder.

"You are given permission to land in a transport vessel, and your ship will be allowed to maintain orbit. You are allowed to bring weapons, though you will be watched at all times, and you are allowed one companion if you feel it necessary. The Lady Regent Novia will meet you, though I do not know why."

Then his voice shifted, gone from cool politeness to hard threat.

"Know this, stranger, if you attempt any harm I will put a pulse through your skull before you so much as twitch wrong. We have had too many attempts made by outsiders."

John nodded. "I understand, you will have no reason to act. And I will come alone."

The security man nodded and signalled to someone off screen, and the connection cut even as the security satellites moved back into orbit.

A small ship moved closer to guide him down, so he said a brief farewell to Angel even though they would still be in range, and entered his personal fighter. Shaped much like a Prowler, it was fitted with every offensive and defensive capability Angel could pack into a smaller frame. Only the best for her captain. He would likely need it.

John followed the guiding ship down to the surface and landed his fighter. Several nervous looking aides greeted him, with an even dozen armed guards watching his every move. There were even more remaining hidden, so John and Angel assumed there had been more attempts to force the main independent faction to pick a side.

Novia met him in a room much like his guest room, though infinitely more extravagantly decorated and set up for meetings. Plush carpets and expensive, comfortable lounges set the tone of the room quite nicely. It was all designed for close, comfortable conversations instead of the previous stately rooms meant to inspire and slightly intimidate.

She had not changed at all beyond perhaps a single additional line marring her forehead. The aides were dismissed, along with most of the guards. Only two remained and they were obviously uncomfortable with the lack of overwhelming superiority, and the two modified pulse pistols at his thighs. Novia waved off their unspoken concerns.

"John Crichton. I hardly recognise you." She gestured for him to sit, which he did. "Don't mind the guards, they know already and I trust them with my daughter's life, and our secrets. They are completely incapable of betraying me or my people. What are you doing here? Have you returned for your unborn child?"

"I have had a few more interesting encounters since last we met, and so I now look like this. I would likely now survive the crystallising process a second time, but I am not here for that. Tyno and your daughter are a much better match, and they love each other. No, I am not here for that.

"Some of the changes have extended my previously shorter lifespan, so I will now live to see my daughter's birth. I wish to have some role in her life, no matter how small. But that is a long time off yet."

She inclined her head, clearly fighting back some curiosity regarding his 'changes'. "You will have access to your daughter. Perhaps you could be her godfather. I have no doubt Katralla would approve, and Tyno can hardly argue. But as you said, that is some decades away. What brought you here?"

"You no doubt have heard something of the war and peace treaty between the Scarrens and the Peace Keepers, and my involvement."

She slowly nodded. "Your deeds are legendary, few others can claim the destruction of an entire planet and forcing two superpowers to sign a treaty against their will."

He barked a short, bitter laugh. "Yes, that was something out of a nightmare, wasn't it? I'll let you know a secret: I can't do that anymore. The knowledge was ripped from my mind by those that put it there; there will be no more wormhole weapons like that. Not until someone develops them on their own.

"In the meantime, if anyone finds out I can no longer create the doomsday black hole, war will once again erupt between the Scarrens and the Peace Keepers. And the Scarrens will win and rape every single world they can. Eventually, this will happen regardless of whether or not they find out; the threat can only enforce the peace for so long. They will soon attack anyway.

"I do not want that for my daughter. I have recently come into a rather useful situation, and I propose a trade that you might find beneficial."

She waved him on when he paused, still slightly dazed by the knowledge he had given her.

"You know of the Tannot root, correct? I now have almost sole ownership of two planets devoted to its harvest."

Novia tensed. Few people knew the secret outside of certain Peace Keepers. "How did this happen?"

"The first was a Peace Keeper farming planet here in the Uncharted Territories that had attempted a rebellion, but in the confusion of the war and it's small attempt at rebellion it was neglected. I arrived and took over.

"The second was a planet of a race at war with one of my friend's peoples. It was beaten and rather than allow its complete destruction I interceded and introduced the Tannot. For a portion of the produce I am allowed complete access to the planet, and have a trade agreement with them selling more. Don't worry, I send them a stabilised Chakan oil and they don't know how it is made. They use it for generators. The secret is kept."

She stared at his new violet eyes for a time before sighing. "I sense there is much more to it than that, including how you came across such a unique ship, but I will not ask. I am glad that you have at least kept it secret, the Tannot must not fall into the hands of others. You no doubt wish to trade Chakan oil for wealth?"

John shook his head. "Not wealth, materials for construction. Or failing that, wealth to purchase such. I had not considered that, actually. Do you know anyone willing to sell large amounts of such materials?"

Novia considered him for a moment before waving the two guards off. They were alone. Considering he was fairly well armed, without even counting his concealed weaponry (Angel was paranoid for her captain with good reason, having seen his memories), and he was protected with a improved Tarkon shield belt, it said something of her trust in him.

Then again, the entire room could well be rigged to kill him and defend her at the slightest provocation.

"We would be willing to sell you such material, or more accurately to act as middlemen between you and certain allied planets here in the Uncharted Territories. They would not sell to a stranger, least of all one with your reputation or strange looks and stranger ship. We, however, have a much better reputation and bargaining position. They need not know where the materials end up, and they would trust us with our decisions regardless.

"What I want to know is exactly what you want the materials for. What is your goal, John Crichton?"

He considered this. What was his goal? For so long it had simply been to survive for the next day, then to stop the war. But now?

"My goal has changed dramatically since we last spoke. The war has been postponed, Scorpius is no longer after me, at least not nearly so single-mindedly. My friends are safe and going about their business, the ones still alive. And my wife and son were murdered by the Scarrens, in an attempt to get rid of the threat of wormhole weapons so they could wage their war."

He let that sink in.

"Apart from my ship, which is a rather interesting story by itself, I am almost alone in the universe. Your daughter and her unborn child, my unborn child, are one of the last living links to this galaxy I have access to.

"I want to destroy the Scarrens. I want my unborn daughter to grow up free from the threat of such a war and the pressures you faced. I want to provide for her, I want to give her a better life. These goals are easily interwoven. I will help grow your empire, to an extent. I will grow my strength and then attack the Scarrens. In such a way that it could not possibly be linked to you or your empire, of course. The nature of my ship alone will see to that."

She inclined her head. The scans of his ship had baffled description; any Scarren attempt to discover where and how it or those like it were constructed would be equally pointless.

"I too have cause to hate the Scarrens. Whatever his faults, Clavor was my son. Besides his murder, the Scarrens have grown too bold. Their reckless, needless violence is beyond all other races, and they have the numbers and strength to destroy too much before they are beaten by any one faction, or even all of them.

"The Peace Keepers have lost much in your show of force, and from that loss their ranks splintered. In the chaos and heat of the moment, many split from them. Several power plays have taken place though most has settled now. They remain only enough to hold their territory, keep their contracts, and defend themselves.

"The Scarrens are perhaps worse off. They lost more to the wormhole, including a significant number of high ranked hierarchy members. The power vacuum has seen massive infighting and no small number of vessels turned pirate in the meantime. There are currently at least three factions bidding for leadership, though this too has settled down. Acts of outright war have quietened, now it is more diplomatic and subtle.

"Even better, the Charrids and Kalish are independently revolting. The Charrids want their independence back, now that the Scarrens are not so all powerful. And the Kalish have seized the opportunity for freedom, though many are dying for the chance. Both are being crushed ruthlessly, so I doubt they will continue much longer. Either they will bow or they will break.

"I will trade with you, and give you shelter if you need it. The Independent Colonies around us will unite, perhaps even take in stragglers from the Peace Keepers. With the Peace Keepers diminished, and vastly outnumbered in the first place, there is nothing to hold the warring Scarren factions in check. They will expand into the Uncharted Territories and swiftly make their way here.

"This Empire is the centre of the Independent Colonies, we hold much sway over everything in this region. They will come for us, subtly perhaps. Outright war with the entire region would not be easy, even for them. But then it would be brash of them to attack in violation of the Treaty, anyway.

"But enough of that. Tell me of your strange ship. Readings and the general shape hint at Leviathan origins, but that seems unlikely. Have you managed to build or buy a new breed of Leviathan? Or perhaps the Patriqu-ro were more successful than I thought and were able to reverse engineer the biomechaniods?"

John smiled at Angel's smugness.

"There was a Peace Keeper project to breed a modified, hybrid Leviathan. Every attempt resulted in the death of the mother and the child, save one. This was Moya. Free of the Control Collar and with a great deal of effort from her unique crew, Moya succeeded in birthing two hybrid warship Leviathans. One perished. My Angel is the last.

"To prevent others seeking her out for the secret, Moya's eggs were removed. Angel is now the only living Leviathan capable of producing such hybrids. Well, her and her son Michael. They are the beginning of a new breed of ships.

"The project was failing, with it's one hundred percent mortality rate. Moya was the last, and the project was dying. Crais was in command, and his Carrier has been destroyed. It is doubtful the Peace Keepers bothered making extensive records of the project once it showed its failings, but all the same, it is beyond their capability to make it work.

"Angel and I would be willing to breed a fleet with you, under certain conditions. Can you imagine it? A living fleet of warships, all growing and healing with little expense on your part, unless you wish to hasten progress. All powerful, and all capable of starburst.

"Naturally I would want some amount of control, and measures taken to prevent any from going rogue, or the secret from being stolen. Angel and I are capable of taking such measures. All Leviathans bred in this fleet would be reprogrammed to be completely loyal, they would have their reproductive systems sealed beyond any attempts to unlock them, and fail safes would be installed to neutralise them should anything untoward happen.

"You have Leviathans for transport already, it could not be too difficult to bring them here to impregnate the females. Or to aquire several more, discreetly. A new long distance trading partner, requiring more ships to carry the cargo? With a few quick alterations, the pregnancies can be smoothed and the impact on their crews minimal. At the proper time they would return and I can get them through the birth mostly intact.

"After a cycle travelling with me through material rich areas, they can be grown enough to be of great use. What do you say to that?"

Novia stood and paced.

"They are indeed Leviathans?"

John nodded. "Highly modified and much more independent. They can have a Pilot but do not need one, and are capable of establishing a neural link to a chosen captain." He turned his back, pulled down his collar and held his loose ponytail aside, showing off the sleek, dark metal just showing above his skin on his neck.

"The captain is by no means in control, but can feel and share sensations, memories and thoughts with the ship. Suggestions can be made, and if the ship chose the captain, they are usually followed. Angel and I share such a pairing.

"The Leviathans in the fleet will be different. Captains can still be chosen, but several programs will be introduced to their systems, rendering them less independant. Due to their relationship with Angel, and through that myself, they will accept some of our authority, but also from their captains. This is what we did with Michael, Angel's son.

"The ships in the fleet however will also have their higher functions muted so to render them more docile and less free-spirited. They will be more like trained, domesticated beasts of burden and attack instead of fully sentient beings. Several others will be raised like Michael, but for the most part they will be dumbed down."

Novia started pacing again, sweeping about the regal room.

"You are asking me to provide you with the means to create a powerful fleet, help create it for you, and then leave you with control over it? I trust you a great deal, strangely enough, but I do not trust you that far. What assurances would I have that you did not simply leave with your army?

"I do not believe you would attack us, though I do not truly understand why that is so. I do not see a means to share control of this fleet. After I have done as you ask, what then? We would have little left to offer you besides even more ships, which you could then breed on your own easily enough. What do you want? What can you offer?"

"I would let you have full use of the ships. They need no crew, but can accommodate and have use for one. You would select captains who would bond with the ships, and then crews and guards. With your captains commanding the ships, and Angel and myself to guide them with more instinctive behaviours, I believe control can be fairly well shared.

"They will not attack Angel or Michael, and they will listen to them as their ancestor mother-figure and father. But they will, with the help of said modifications, obey their captains. Your captains. I ask that you give me an official position of authority in the new fleet. Not Admiral, or anything in command of day to day activities, but with enough rank to have orders obeyed when they need to be.

"I suppose I wish to maintain some of the independence I have grown used to while still being in control, at least partly."

What he did not tell her was that the new ships would be supplied with neural clones of himself and Angel to be their true captains. The ships would be easily able to overcome any crew aboard them, and the neural link with the Sabacean captains went both ways. With the full weight of John's and Angel's collective minds, including Scorpius and Aeryn, the 'captains' wouldn't stand a chance. They could be overtaken, if it came down to it.

Hopefully it would not be necessary, but it was simple enough to plan for the worst.

Novia considered this. It was tempting, and with her choosing the captains it would give a great deal of control over the new fleet. She was certain that John understated the influence Angel and Michael would have on their progeny, but that was easily remedied with distance and a few tweaks. She would have a few failsafes of her own included, too.

It seemed to be a very profitable partnership no matter what.

"Very well. I will name you my special advisor in all matters involving this new fleet and give you the rank of Commander. You can order those under you, and your role as my special advisor will allow you to 'suggest' actions that will be obeyed by these new ships and those under them, unless you order them contrary to the security of this Empire, naturally.

"Though this raises a few issues. I will not harbour John Crichton from all who seek wormhole weapons, there are too many. Your appearance though allows you the opportunity to create an alias. You called yourself 'Scythe', is this persona already established?"

He nodded. "I am Scythe to the Luxans and Ilanics, my buyers of stabilised Chakan oil. I call it Kanak fluid near them, by the way. Scythe is a member of a newly exploring small, shy race called Nephilim, sent out to trade with outsiders and discover the state of the universe around them."

"Well then, welcome to the great Sabacean Empire, Scythe. It will be a pleasure doing business with you."

"The pleasure is mine, Lady Novia."

She inclined her head and gestured at the closed door. The two guards entered with a third, who was carrying a case. It was set on a desk and opened, revealing two data chips, a badge and a ring. Apparently they had been listening in the entire time. Either that, or Novia had an incredible method of communication with them.

Novia explained. "This ring will show your role as my special advisor. Even if I die, you will be acknowledged by my people. Certain key members of my guard and staff are aware of your true meaning to the royal family. If the worst were to happen, you have a place in line to the throne.

"The badge is proof of your rank of Commander, since I doubt you will wear the uniform. The data chips contain everything you would need to know to perform either function, including security codes and communication frequencies. Do not get ahead of yourself, you do not have that much military access.

"I will not sacrifice the existing fleets for this new one. This is an opportunity I will not miss, but I will not risk my people by gambling everything on a strange new type of ship. Materials will be purchased with the benefits of the Chakan oil you will bring us, along with the hiring and purchase of all the female Leviathans we can find.

"The existing female Leviathans in our service will be brought in at no cost, but I will not spend more of my people's wealth than I have to for this endeavour. Bring us the Chakan oil, and we will trade for extra ships and materials with that."

"Of course."

"I also feel these new ships need a different name. What would you call them?"

Instantly the name jumped out at him.

"Dragons. Call them dragons. A mythical creature from my world that stole and guarded treasures and strongholds, a great winged beast with claws and fangs and a strong tail, thick armoured scales and the ability to breathe lethal fire. They represent power, invincibility, protection, and death from the skies to their enemies."

Novia nodded, and she could tell her guards were impressed with such a creature.

"So we name them thus. Let us breed a fleet of Dragons to rule the heavens."

She handed John the badge and ring, and he accepted them. The ring was silver with a black and white emblem, the symbol of the Royal Family but not in gold like a member of the family would be. He was fine with that. He slipped it onto his right middle finger and felt the mechanism in the band resize to fit. The badge was similarly designed, but with blue and black, and with a different pattern around the symbol. He pressed it to his jacket breast and felt it latch on.

"Scythe is now my special advisor and a Commander in our fleet. Spread the word." The guards saluted with clasped hands to their torsos and slight bows before leaving to obey their once-empress.

"Now then, 'Scythe', let us work out the details of this plan of yours."

It was eventually agreed that he would return in three months to artificially impregnate however many Leviathans Novia could procure by that time. He would return every month after that to do the same for any others found. By the time the first batch were ready to give birth, they and he would head to a certain planet and hide amongst the asteroids lingering near it's third moon for the duration of the births.

It had the benefit of being away from prying eyes, having multiple hiding places, and being fairly close to the Sacred Burial Space. Their little secret, thanks to careful scans and the destruction of all harvester/pirates in the vicinity. Any who had learned of the location by Sikozu's ill-fated exemplary work ethic had perished, taking the secret with them in their greed.

The three months passed fairly slowly at first. Angel and John met up with Michael after a little exploring, and exchanged memories on all that had happened. Michael had handled his first solo mission wonderfully. Everything went as expected, though with an increase in pirate attacks due to overconfidence in his alone status.

He had easily defeated them all, and even towed the wreckage away for his mother's analysis later. The one outstanding incident was an encounter with a Nebari vessel on is long range scanners. He had immediately starburst away, as they had instructed him to do.

Having had very little experience with Nebari technology and the knowledge that one of their 'standard Hive vessels' had destroyed the strongest Peace Keeper Carrier, and therefore ship, ever, they felt it necessary to be overly cautious.

It had not pursued him, might not have even detected him, so they felt secure enough not to change their route beyond the usual variation. The Nebari were probably collecting information on the new state of things since the War/Treaty and the splintering factions.

They and their Contagion were another issue to be dealt with. Chiana and through her, her brother and the Resistance would have to be found. The cure for the carriers was known, so hopefully a cure for the Contagion itself was known too.

So Angel and John made their way to the last known coordinates Chiana, Jothee and Rygel had been headed towards, leaving Michael to continue his good work. Suddenly it occurred to John that Rygel was the rightful ruler of a rather grand empire. Rygel the XVI, Dominar to over six hundred billion subjects, that was what Rygel had boasted. Rather more than the Breakaway Colonies.

Perhaps another fleet? A larger fleet? It depended on a number of things. Rygel had been deposed, it might be a little complicated getting him back on the throne. And he didn't know if the Hyneria Empire used Leviathans, or had access to them. But they must be wealthy, and everything was possible for the right price.

Luckily enough, the Hynerian Empire was well known to Scorpius, even beyond the star-charts. A few extended starbursts, courtesy of Angel's enlarged starburst chamber and her additional, grafted one, had them well on their way to the capital planet.

Hyneria was actually beautiful.

Bronze coloured archways, statues and carvings glittered in the sunlight that danced off the water. Green forests of extraordinary beauty, both wild and tamed, covered a significant portion of the land. John knew from images in the databanks that under the water was even more wondrously pleasing to the eye, with Hynerians being amphibians and spending lots of time underwater.

The Hynerian Empire was strange to most as it was not dominated by one race. Dozens of Planets still held the population of their original species, only they were either conquered, raised by, or joined with the Hynerians. Rygel's people ruled shrewdly, managing all the different peoples incredibly well. Military might was secondary to economical powers, though it too had its place.

Hynerians had never needed the service of Peace Keepers for any planetary occupation, ever. Rare instances of dealings with them existed, but never a standard contract. Rygel himself had been deposed partly with Peace Keeper involvement, his cousin Bishan having paid them to lock him away.

Upon entering the system via the appropriate channels, John and Angel accessed the public network to discover current news.

Rygel had been headed here under the promise of his throne back from his cousin, not that he was foolish enough to believe it. New information had come to him that the people were discontent, and that he still had some loyal admirals and followers left.

The news said nothing about Rygel. Or Chiana and Jothee, who had accompanied him. Jothee meant very little to Crichton, having hurt Ka D'Argo greatly. Sleeping with his long lost father's fiancé? Nope, the kid meant almost nothing at all to John. Chiana though was special to him, something between a kid sister and the girl next door. With everything they had been through together, and almost everybody else dying, Chiana was a friend he did not want to die.

He didn't miss her, exactly, but he did want her to live a happier life.

Same with Rygel, oddly enough. The little guy had come through for them more often than not, and really truly when it counted. Carrying his son for a while, as messed up as that had been, meant something to him, too.

So it was disturbing to hear the propaganda about Bishan, and nothing about Rygel. Angel began going through every signal she could sense, an astounding amount of information, for any sign of the missing rightful Dominar.

The result was not pretty.

Certain code words and encrypted signals attracted Angel's attention, and from there it was only a matter of breaking into the secure channels and computer systems with her infiltration and hacking abilities. Something she had devoted a large portion of her free time developing while they travelled.

Rygel and two outsiders had been captured and held on a Peace Keeper cruiser. Well then.

John got aboard his secondary personal ship and left Angel's hangar. Unlike his fighter, this ship was built to carry passengers. Shaped almost like a miniature of Angel, it had everything he needed to pull off a rescue.

Unlike many, Peace Keeper ships were fully secure against outside systems infiltration. Also unlike many, Angel had every little scrap of data about Peace Keeper technologies and security.

She slipped in and discovered the exact holding area of the prisoners. From there, John flew his ship, under its Deception Shroud, to land against the hull at the closest point.

Like the Luxan Penetrators, this ship would cut through the hull quickly and let a boarding party sneak in. Which was exactly what John did. An oval was quickly burnt through the thick hull and thrown out into space. A holographic projection concealed the breech for now, while the clever programming of the Deception Shroud tricked the Peace Keeper vessel into thinking the hull was still intact, and it's mass unaltered.

Two droids remained behind in the ship, where they guarded it along with the ship's inside mounted guns. Two other droids would hover behind John as they snuck through the enemy vessel. Personal Deception Shrouds, based on the Tarkan shield belts, covered all three from prying eyes.

Few Peace Keepers were encountered on their journey, and it was easy to knock out the guards outside the prison quarters with stun blasts. The security cameras were tricked into showing a frozen image of the guards at attention, taken moments before.

Rygel, Chiana and Jothee didn't recognise him when he opened their cell doors with pulse fire. Some habits were simply too fun to give up.

Waving off their questions at his appearance being a disguise that he would tell them about later, he followed Angel's whispered instructions to the storage area containing their belongings.

Several guards were stunned in the process, John feeling it would be a waste to kill enemies of Scarrens.

They finally had all their things and followed him to his ship. The instant they detached, alarms went off in in the cruiser. What was previously thought to be an ill-fated escape attempt became suddenly very serious when a man-sized hole in the hull was detected and promptly shielded.

Their prisoners had faded away like ghosts after that.

Rygel and the others were thrilled to be free and celebrated by bombarding him with questions.

They asked about the ship, and he explained it was from Moya's second baby, named Angel. It was made from Luxan technology he had found when fighting the Scorvians. Aeryn wasn't there because she was dead.

So was D'Argo.

That earned some stunned silence.

He explained the it had been a Bioloid, so probably Scarren. He had survived by mere accident. He hadn't told them because he was depressed and not thinking at the time. No, he wasn't lonely because he had Angel who had part of Aeryn inside her. D'Argo too, but that was different.

His appearance had been altered when Angel bonded with him, he didn't go into the genetic modification details. Yes, long hair looked strange on him. No, he wouldn't let her cut it off. He was doing stuff, and rescuing them, what did they think?

They reached Angel having avoided all Peace Keeper scans, and boarded her easily. John explained that the Peace Keepers had been slowly moving in on Luxan space, a mere rumour he had picked up on during his trades with them, but it served his purpose.

Jothee and Chiana begged off to go help and Rygel gave his blessing, sensing perhaps there was more John wanted to speak of and do without them present. One of the Luxan ships, repaired and supplied by Angel, was gifted to them and the next day they were off. Chiana gave her heartfelt grief and sympathies, but she was with Jothee and Jothee needed to return and help his people. Or so he thought.

John waved them goodbye, after giving Chiana a messenger beacon, and soon they were gone. She knew nothing about how the cure for the Contagion worked, or who her brother got it from. She was still desperate to find Nerri and his Resistance. She promised to contact him as soon as she found them.

Now it was just him, Angel, and Rygel.

"Now then. What's this all about, Crichton?"

John smiled.

"Good to see you too, Sparky. I honestly missed you."

He took a deep breath.

"I want to kill the Scarrens. Not so much the Peace Keepers any more, only a little bit. But the Scarrens I want dead. You remember the Sacred Leviathan Burial Space? Angel used parts from there to grow faster. Much faster.

"To prevent anyone going after Moya, Angel's DRDs took Moya's eggs so she couldn't be used to birth a fleet of warships. Pilot and Moya are exploring space, free from all of this for the first time in cycles.

"Angel and I are building an army. She already has a son, Michael. He's much like Talyn except calmer. We gave him a copy of our neural clones to be his pilot, and we made him more loyal and obedient than Talyn, though he is definitely his own self.

"Rygel, Talyn was a gunship. Angel is a research and development ship, with guns attached. She is much, much smarter and capable of much more. Michael's seed carries the same alterations. We made an agreement with the Breakaway Colonies, you know, the statue planet. We'll breed an army with them. I have been made a special advisor to the Royal Family, and a Commander in their fleet."

He held up the ring, and gestured to his badge.

"They'll supply female Leviathans and material, we'll supply the seed and technical stuff. Oh, and remember Sykar? With the Tannot root? With the war and their being in the Uncharted Territories, they were forgotten. Their rebellion was crushed, so Angel and I took over. The Chakan oil harvested there is all ours. I've made an agreement with the Breakaway Colonies to seek some to them.

"The processing plant was taken over, and now it produces defensive satellites as well. The planet is unknown, off star charts, and now defended. We took out the Scorvians as well, and introduced the Tannot there too. For a third of the Chakan oil produced there, given to the Ilanics, I have the entire planet. I even sell more to them and the Luxans for profit.

"It was geared towards war, so it was easily automated. Drones and defensive satellites are produced there too, and more and more hydroponic facilities are made for Tannot production. Even better, the Chakan oil I sell the Ilanics and Luxans is stabilised and used only in power reactors. I call it Kanak fluid, and they don't know how it is made. They haven't made the connection.

"So you see, Rygel, I'm building a fleet to crush the Scarrens, and defend my territory. You remember the Nebari? Their Contagion? Their plan to use it to help their conquest of the galaxy? My fleet will defend against them, too. And any other threat that comes."

Rygel took in this information with the look he used when playing Tadek against a surprisingly competent opponent. Something John had only seen twice.

"You surprise me, Crichton. Who would have thought that after all this time, you could become sane. Special advisor to a strong Empire and father to their heir, ruler of two planets and friend to the rightful Dominar of the Hynerian Empire... My how far you've come.

"You want me to provide female Leviathans for your fleet when you help me get back on the throne, don't you?"

John wasn't going to beat around the bush with a sharp mind.

"The hybrid Leviathans will be modified to be loyal and less free-willed, obeying orders from their captains. You are free to choose captains of your own, I only ask for a position of authority within the fleet so that-"

"Crichton," Rygel interrupted. "Do not try that with me. You have some way to control them no matter who the captain, don't you? Some sort of chip, or perhaps a bomb to detonate if they don't follow your orders? Whatever it is, I don't care. I'll give you captains if you need them, but the fleet will be yours. As I suspect the Breakaway Colonies' fleet will be too, eh?"

John smiled. Rygel chuckled.

"Right you are, Dominar. Angel and I will upload neural clones of ourselves to be the primary captains. Combined with some modifications rendering them utterly loyal and less conscious, less free-willed, Angel and I will have control of the fleets."

"Excellent. And being Leviathans, they won't need anything to sustain them, beyond some materials to hasten deadly repairs and such."

"Actually, Rygel, certain materials in quantities let them mature much more quickly. But you are correct, they will gather all they need from space. Also, we're calling them Dragons."

John explained the choice, and his alias as Scythe.

Rygel loved it.

"Excellent choice. Very poetic. I never would have guessed your people to have such wonderful ideas. When I regain the throne, I will make you my highest advisor, and Admiral of my Dragon Fleet.

"But what will you tell the Independents? They will notice our actions, even from so far. They have many spies, their independence depended on reliable information gathering to help them maintain their neutrality."

John, and Angel, considered this for a moment.

"I will tell them the truth. My good friend has reclaimed his throne and expressed interest. In exchange for wealth and power, I am helping him build a fleet of Dragons. You got on well enough, perhaps this could be the start of a friendship between your two empires."

Rygel smiled. A handful of years ago, John would have shuddered at that smile.

"I agree. That would be the wisest choice, and an alliance between our empires would make us a formidable force. Lastly, before we move on to the task of regaining my throne, tell me more of how the Tannot root works."

So John explained the beauty of engineering that was the Tannot root. Mind altering toxins, super nutritious value, and explosively powerful Chakan oil.

"Back before I was deposed, there were a small number of newly conquered worlds that refused to completely submit. Always attacking nearby allied worlds. The number could only have increased under my idiot cousin's rule.

"What do you think of letting me introduce that marvellous root there? My loyal citizens would set everything up, and the Tannot would do the rest. Within a cycle we could have them all turned into efficient Chakan oil farms and factories, populated with happy, content citizens no longer bent on rebellion."

"I would allow it, so long as I get my share of the Chakan oil, and the Tannot is not simply used to subdue the bulk of your citizens."

"Of course. What if two thirds is used for the good of the Empire, powering reactors and standard weaponry and such, with the other third being split between extra power for your fleet, and trade, with the profit split equally between you and my treasury?"

John eyed him speculatively.

"Why so small an amount for profit? You of all people, Sparky?"

Rygel smiled that chilling smile again.

"You fail to recognise the enormity of the situation. There will be dozens of worlds, Crichton, entirely devoted to this. The two thirds will easily power most of the Empire and it's normal defences, freeing up a great deal of resources and creating a glut of power. This then will have to be used somehow, so new technologies to make full use of it will be implemented.

"The Dragon fleet could not possibly need much Chakan oil, with all Leviathans surviving and thriving in space without needing extra materials to power reactors. They simply absorb ambient energies and space dust. You said it yourself that Angel doesn't use much, and she can grow what she needs in her decks just by taking on fertile soils. Or rerouting nutrition from the space dust she gathers, I suppose.

"The remaining amount will be more than sufficient to generate wealth, and the buyers will be citizens too. And where will you spend your share, hmm? My citizens gain another buyer, make more money, and I get more from the taxes. All in all, I spend very little to get a lot. The planets would be producing next to nothing anyway and you are providing the Tannot that does most of the work for us."

Rygel ended with a laugh that made John smile.

"Very true. Your terms are agreeable, Dominar Rygel." John gave a small, overly embellished bow. "Now let us win back your throne."

It was rather easily done.

An illegal signal was sent out over the public channels. Once enough attention was gained by the announcements that Rygel the XVI was making an announcement, it went live.

Rygel greeted his citizens for the first time in roughly one hundred and forty cycles. He explained the coup, how his cousin had hired Peace Keepers to spirit him away and keep him imprisoned. He explained his escape, glossing over certain aspects and highlighting his bravery and cunning in overcoming numerous deadly foes and obstacles.

He ended with a declaration of his return, and a plea and order for all loyal Hynerian citizens to detain the pretender to the throne so he can await judgement while he, Rygel the XVI reclaims his place as their rightful leader.

Not surprisingly, the planet and indeed the Empire was in chaos for a while. The military could not shoot him down as some of them, conspirators to the coup, wished. Firstly because the ship looked like it could blow them all to oblivion with a sneeze, and secondly because all eyes were on it. They could not be seen attacking the vessel containing their long thought dead leader, and one of the Royal Lineage.

Also, many of their number were loyal to him, having had no part in or not knowing of the coup. And the citizens were thrilled. Long had they wished for a better leader, and suddenly their true ruler returns from the dead, having bravely won free!

Angel drifted lower and lower until she was hovering right before the Royal Palace, the one above the water's surface, anyway. The hangar opened and Rygel flew down in the larger piloted ship, with John accompanying him.

They landed on the doorsteps and disembarked. John and the four droids were in flanking positions around Rygel, all hidden save the Dominar by their Deception Shrouds, and all shielded by their modified Tarkan shield belts.

Rygel had three, all active, just in case.

They were needed, too. Not two minutes since landing, three sniper shots rang out and collided with Rygel's shields. He glared nobly at the attempt, and waved at the cheering crowd gathered to follow him. He seemed the pinnacle of bravery, boldly facing down his would be assassin, all alone.

At John's whispered words, Rygel pointed in the direction of the shot, and one of the invisible droids returned fire with deadly accuracy.

The crowd cheered, their returned Dominar was invincible and powerful.

Rygel gestured for silence, and it fell immediately.

"My loyal citizens! I have returned!"

Hold for thunderous applause and cheers.

"Too long have you suffered under the pretender! Go now and bring him before me! Let him face his judgement for treason!"

More thunderous cheering, followed by a stampede that swept around them, none daring to penetrate the personal space of their Dominar.

Angel had located Bishan from one of his speeches, and had locked onto him so they knew he was still in the above ground palace. Angel prevented escape from air and Rygel's loyal followers would prevent escape by ground. The Royal Guard itself would stop Bishan from fleeing into any of the escape tunnels or panic rooms, as they had the pass codes.

It was not long at all before the guards brought him forward, tens of thousands of people around watching them dump him forward and then step back half bowed.

"Please, cousin, I beg your forgiveness! Let me serve you, let me live to serve our glorious Empire!"

The words were chosen well, short and sweet and patriotic in this time of heightened emotions. Rygel merely smiled.

"By your own admission, you, Bishan, are guilty of Treason against me and against the Empire. The penalty for such treason is immediate death. Goodbye, cousin. I will not miss your stink."

With that, Rygel waved his hand and five blasts struck the quivering Bishan before he could beg again. He was blown into chunks, the pieces scattered across the floor.

The crowd went wild.

"Bring me my head wives and the Admirals!"

It had been an entirely military coup, that much Rygel knew from the Peace Keeper records. It was time to deal with this, once and for all.

Almost an hour passed before all were brought forward, and the energy of the crowd did not fade. Rygel kept it up with a few powerful speeches. When they arrived, it was easy to tell who knew what had happened. Some looked pleased, others horrified and terrified, others showed no expression.

"Who among you are guilty?"

Angel was scanning and sensed which bodies reacted to these words. Before they could answer, Rygel pointed them out, guided by John's voice in his ear.

By the end there were four wives and eleven Admirals who Angel had sensed were guilty.

"You are the guilty ones. I have sensed it. Do you deny this?"

Several tried, including all of the wives.

"Lies! I am Rygel the XVI, descendant of Rygel the Great himself! I know when you lie! I find you guilty of treason against myself and this great Empire! The punishment for this is immediate death! I will not miss your stink!"

Another wave of his hand had them all blasted apart in a flurry of pulse shots. All shot in the head this time, blasting most of them apart and leaving the bodies to collapse upon the floor.

More cheers.

After that, Rygel entered his palace with the remainder of his head wives and not disloyal Admirals. The crowd was sent off with another speech, and then Rygel retreated to his den. The rest of his wives were tested, and none of them knew of the coup before it had happened. Most were happy at his return, free from the boredom of living as secondary wives to the new Dominar.

None had been touched, Bishan could not know who was deadly loyal and who was a political wife only. Bishan's wives were sent back to their homes, in a massive break from tradition. The new ruler usually kept them around, if only to gloat and keep the political connections. Rygel wanted neither, he wanted security. No wife to his betrayer would sleep under his roof.

Angel rose and went back into space, orbiting the planet. A meeting with the remaining Admirals and the highest ranked officers in his fleet led to a few promotions and some reshuffling. His old advisors were brought back, many having been fired and replaced with Bishan's. Everything was to go back to how it had been, with allowances for the heightened tensions from the Peace Keeper/Scarran war and a greater focus on defence.

Certain taxes were lowered or removed, ships given orders to subdue sections long left to rebel as corrupt officials received cuts from pirates. Much of the treasury had been depleted in extravagant displays to win over the public, and many poor decisions. Rygel would change that very quickly. But even reduced it was still a massive amount of wealth; even Bishan couldn't have ruined the collective accumulation of generations of greedy and intelligent Hynerians,

The next day a coronation ceremony was had, broadcast all over the empire. Rygel the XVI was Dominar once more, and the public loved him. Even more when the taxes were cut.

Bishan had not done so terrible a job, he was simply not brilliant and had been unpopular, more so in the wake of Rygel's mysterious disappearance. 'Scythe' was introduced to the admirals, advisors and palace guards. He was given a ring much grander than the Independant Sabacean Empire's one, though John had never truly expected otherwise, Hynerian's being what they were.

Thick gold metal with a crimson and royal purple seal, it marked him a favourite, and the highest advisor. His authority in military matters was second only to Rygel's and his heirs', though he could not inherit the throne by any means and had no authority in anything else.

He was not, however, the Commissioner of War. Rygel split the position between several of his best admirals and himself, wanting to take a more active role in strategic decisions this time around.

There was one more surprise to be had. Scorpius was found trying to flee on a stolen ship. Rygel had ordered the military to close off the system save for carefully scrutinised vessels, not wanting any of the numerous people of interest who were still at large escaping in the confusion. It turned out Scorpius had managed to earn Bishan's favour and had been his Commissioner of War during his brief time on Hyneria.

Apparently he had decided the weakened Peace Keepers no longer held the means to support his quest for revenge against the Scarrans, and so had attached himself to the largest military power he could. The Nebari and several other large alliances and territories would be unsuited or not easily influenced, so he chose the Hynerians.

With a large number of planets and a fairly weak and paranoid ruler, it had been perfect for him. Now, not so much. He had naturally assumed Rygel would execute him much like he had Bishan, and so attempted to escape. He was caught by vigilant guards and eventually brought before Rygel when a higher officer recognised him as the former Commissioner.

Rygel and John were unsure of themselves in this regard. They instinctively wished to kill him, twice, and then make absolutely sure by vaporising his body before their very eyes. The halfbreed bastard had survived certain death more often than John himself, which was saying something.

On the other hand, he was a military genius who hated the Scarrans more than anything in the universe. John hated them too, and while Rygel held more hatred for Peace Keepers, his loathing for Charrids, the Scarrans' allies, overruled all. And since the Scarrens and Charrids had merged their military so perfectly together, to attack one was to attack both.

They felt he could be a powerful ally, if one not to be trusted.

After a full day of arguing all sides of the issue, taking turns to debate on different sides every other turn, it was decided they would trust him, to an extent. They spent several more days preparing for the encounter, letting Scorpius wait while they attended to other things. They of course made sure he was absolutely secure, and the guards given orders to allow zero interaction with him and to kill if necessary.

Three of the four droids were sent to guard him, such was their concern.

He was brought to the most secure interrogation room that was not actually in the dungeons, completely strapped, restrained and welded into a solid metal chair that was part of the floor itself, with no less than a dozen turrets locked onto his general location and specific biological signature. And to top it off, five explosive devices were wrapped around his neck, elbows and knees and set to go off if he left the room or a button in controllers that both Rygel and Crichton held was pressed.

Scorpius was not going anywhere, and they wanted him to know it.

Once the rules and explosives had been explained by expressionless Palace Guards, and Scorpius had been allowed an hour to contemplate his position, Rygel and Crichton entered.

His face was impassive as he took in Rygel hovering on his thronesled, but he did a double take when John gave him a mocking salute.

"John? Is that you? What happened to you?"

John walked around the metal wall boxing Scorpius in around his chair, except open at the back, dragging his hand over it's surface. It was much more efficient than the 'normal' desk in front of the suspect, in that it prevented more forward movement and yet left them feeling more vulnerable from behind.

He came to a seat on the other side of the room, besides the hovering Dominar.

"Well, it is something of a long story. To make it kinda brief, Aeryn and D'Argo, our son, were murdered by a Bioloid. Yes, I know, likely Scarran. It only just failed killing me as well. Moya had a second baby. A daughter like and yet unlike Talyn. You have researched the hybrid project, yes? Angel is a research and development type.

"She chose me for her captain, and the extra sensory information knocked me out for a long time. Her sensors are much, much more extensive than Talyn's were, after all. She then decided that her captain needed to live longer, and so did a little genetic modification. The eyes and hair colour is because she is a little vain, and it matches her colouring.

"Together she and I have been building strength. I needed information from Chiana about the Nebari, and so discovered Rygel's little problem and helped him out there. We intend to breed a fleet of leviathan warships, renamed Dragons. Moya's eggs were taken by Angel, so I have access to the sole method of producing them.

"I have made contact with the Breakaway Colonies and been made special advisor, and Commander of the Dragon Fleet that will be soon bred there. Here I am Admiral of the soon to be Dragon Fleet as well, courtesy of our great Dominar here."

Rygel inclined his head, and took over.

"Crichton has also taken over a neglected Tannot farm world, and spread the Tannot to yet another planet. He has established trading with the Luxans and their allies, though with a stabilised Chakan oil he calls Kanak fluid. They use it to power their reactors. He does this under the alias Scythe, from a new, shy race called the Nephilim.

"Together we plan to introduce the Tannot root to disruptive planets within my Empire, and use it to increase my military might, as well as provide additional power for both the Dragon Fleet and the planetary reactors. With this and Crichton as a middleman between us, we plan to ally my Empire with the Sabacean Empire.

"This is all to defend ourselves until we are ready to destroy the Scarrans and the Charrids. And deal with the threat of the Nebari, and any others. Do you know of the Nebari Contagion?"

Scorpius slowly nodded, after gathering his slightly dazed expression together.

"Peace Keeper High Command has known of the Contagion for years, as have the Scarrans, though they are naturally immune and unlikely to contract it in the first place. Independant discovery and then information sent from the Nebari Resistance alerted them to it's existence, and a cure was developed and used on all personnel over the course of two cycles, as the curing process takes up to several days.

"An immunisation was developed and spread through all important worlds, as well. On both sides.

"The Nebari cannot seriously believe everyone would miss it's existence when it attempts to specifically override personality and behaviour. Only those in no position to be any threat will be effected by it when it activates, and those will likely die painful deaths when the antivirus imbedded in the free, standard immunisations, and some illicit drugs that flooded the market, fights back against it.

"Unfortunately it only takes effect when it encounters the activated Contagion, but the Nebari will find their great ploy far from devastating as they no doubt wish it to be. A counter measure proposed by yours truly." Scorpius ended with a dip of his head, the closest to a bow he could achieve, restrained as he was.

John and Rygel were relieved and impressed, though they would never say that to his face. Rygel replied for them.

"I am glad that has been dealt with, but even so they intend to attack. They destroyed the Zelbinion, you know. 'One of their standard Hive vessels', they said."

Scorpius nodded. "They are aware of this, though they took measures to hide it from the troops to keep morale up. The Nebari weapons are not to be taken lightly, and they have excellent shields and countermeasures. Their Hive ships are almost twice the size of a Scarran Dreadnought, though, so the destruction of the Zelbinion is hardly unexplainable under the circumstances.

"The Nebari Establishment is supposedly against violence, and so cannot call their Fleet a military, nor their ships categories of fighting vessels. A Hive ship is to them simply a flying city with a large population, therefore needing a larger capacity to defend itself against us, the savage barbarians out for their blood.

"Their worlds are rich in metals, and they have claimed a great many asteroid belts with concentrated deposits. With their enormous population and Mind Cleansing to keep the masses under control, as well as acquire brilliant minds from other races, they present a major threat to Peace Keepers and the galaxy at large.

"Not quite so great as the Scarrans, however, and they are infinitely more reasonable when approached correctly. They currently have held a non-aggression treaty with the the Peace Keepers for hundreds of cycles, each avoiding the others territory.

"They will break it one day, though to the best of my knowledge none of the Peace Keeper spies were able to determine when. It seems only the highest members of the Establishment know the date.

"But enough about the Nebari. I am more uhm, interested in your plans for the Scarrans."

Rygel and John exchanged looks, then agreed. The Nebari were secondary. John spoke up.

"The Dragon fleets bred will be modified to be completely loyal and obedient to Angel, and through her myself. Do not even think of attempting anything there, Scorpy. Our link is not one that can be broken or stolen and in any case, Angel only takes my suggestions. She is easily as smart as you, and has taken steps to defend herself against any attempt to influence her.

"I will take the Dragons to material rich areas for a cycle to speed their growth, and along with metals purchased with wealth from the Chakan oil, I will have them mature and strong enough for active duty. Within one or two more cycles, with many visits to those areas, they will be powerful enough to face Dreadnoughts and Command Carriers."

Rygel took over.

"We know you want revenge against the Scarrans, and we think you will agree that we are your best chance."

He waited for Scorpius to nod before he continued.

"I want you to continue in your position as Commissioner of War, though reporting more completely, and working very closely with myself and my admirals. While Crichton is building the fleet, you will be helping me instruct my admirals on how to manage and deploy my armies. You will command several research programs to design and implement better weaponry and such. And you will generally do everything you can to help strengthen and prepare my Empire for destroying the Scarrans.

"Also, any suggestions you like will be taken to the Sabacean Empire as well, by Crichton. When the Dragon Fleet is ready, there is a special flagship you will be given personal command of, if you do not prove untrustworthy in the meantime, naturally."

"What is this flagship?" Scorpius was intrigued despite himself.

John answered him.

"Talyn was a gunship, Angel is R&D, there are also missile ships and lastly flagships. Enormous leviathan hybrids capable of housing dozens of fully mature leviathans. Your Dragon will be one of the largest ships in the Galaxy one day. It will probably need a new classification of its own.

"A few security measures will be put in place, but it will retain as much sentience as you like, and be neurally linked to you alone. A reward for good behaviour, and a weapon best put in your rather brilliant hands.

"Do not get your hopes up too high, there will be at least two others of equal size and more than enough Dragons to destroy it several times over. You will not single handedly rule the galaxy, but you will control a deadly force within it so long as you remain our ally. And you will have your revenge against the Scarrans."

John took a deep breath and pulled out what looked like a slab of organic metal. He placed it on the half wall between them with a small portable computer showing it's design and programming.

"As a gesture of our goodwill, but mostly fear of your betrayal, I offer you a gift. Angel has repurposed one of Moya's eggs and modified it. It could have been an entire gunship one day, but no longer. This device, if you use it, will attach itself to your chest and grow over your skin as a new body coolant suit.

"It would be just as thin as your existing suit, though more dense and far more efficient. You would no longer need coolant rods or any external source to regulate your body temperature. It would transmit sensations to you much like toughened skin would, though no debilitating pain. It is powered and so would act like a powered exoskeleton, though obviously not to such a degree. You would, however, be more than a match for a Scarran.

"It is stronger than your current body armour and would appear no different, though it can be altered, and it repairs organically. It would absorb excess nutrients from your diet when needed, which would be infrequently unless damaged, but never when there is not enough. It is also capable of absorbing small material from contact, like metal dust.

"It will develop several defensive and offensive measures, but they are pretty instinctive and you'll figure those out.

"Angel actually designed it for me, and then tweaked it for you.

"It does, however, come with a price. The suit itself cannot be sabotaged externally, and it has no means to be influenced or to influence you, but it will implant a chip with a neural clone of myself in your brain. Unlike the one you put in me, this would not be searching for any information and would only appear to you when called for. It's sole function will be complete loyalty to me and to stop you should you betray us.

"You may look into it's programming, it is much the same as the one you used on me, with said differences. You should know that Angel salvaged your one and is using it to help me. With everything that has happened between our minds, I figure this is fairly poetic."

Scorpius asked to be released to examine it, and Rygel ordered it done. Guards came in and undid the restraints, a complex matter that required no little amount of time. The explosive devices, however, were left in place.

Scorpius examined the portable computer's programming and the device itself for a long while before coming to the conclusion that there were no nasty surprises, and several pleasant ones. The suit, or second skin, would also contain a personal shield and several inbuilt energy weapons, and the capability to grow simple tools, given proper materials.

All in all it did not include any astounding technologies, aside from being biomechanoid in nature. It was simply the combination of so many of them into the one device that was so marvellous.

Scorpius immediately agreed once he saw that, should he genuinely feel betrayed by them, the neural chip would not hamper efforts to defend himself, even against them personally.

What he did not know was that, hidden in the organic nature of the device, the miniature power cores and power cells were programmed to overload and explode if such a thing ever occurred.

Scorpius signed a contract with Rygel and once more became officially the Commissioner of War of the Hynerian Empire. He was in surgery that same day, where his cooling mechanism and body suit were removed, and the new suit placed on his chest. A case of the necessary materials in liquid form was linked to it, and it grew rapidly even as Scorpius recovered from the surgery.

Before the day was over, Scorpius was covered in black once more. He even had it grow the strange dual-cape he had become accustomed to, the second skin growing to accommodate it's "passenger's" desires, within limits.

Never again would he suffer from the heating-cooling issues that had plagued him since his conception.

Diagnostics were run and everything worked as it should. The suit/skin was a complete success.

In fact, it surpassed expectations. So much so that John even gave in to Angel's nagging and accepted one specially made for him. This one was from one of Angel's own eggs, the first one to be used for anything. It was much the same as Scorpius' one, save altogether better, more powerful, with a focus on it being removable and capable of a great deal more.

The hand and feet guards were easily detached and removed, the rest took a little more effort. The gloves could also retract in several pieces into the gauntlet. Instead of a head covering it had a collapsible helmet that folded down his back and into the 'suit' itself. It also had a loose covering mimicking the type of clothing he favoured, and with the second skin underneath it transmitting sensations John often forgot he was wearing it, thinking he was simply wearing clothes.

Angel had put a great deal of effort into the design to make that possible.

Improved and miniaturised Tarkan shield emitters were located at the waist, chest, back, shoulders, hips, knees, ankles, forearms, wrists, and neck. The main few even had redundancies, and all doubled as a Deception Shroud emitters.

The gauntlets were based on the instinctive weapon used by a certain highly specialised pirate group, being capable of creating and launching physical energy to block enemy fire or knocking them down. They held blades, as well as wrist-mounted Pulse weapons that could be tuned to fire in various configurations.

The shoulders pads each contained a small automated turret with both beam and pulse capabilities, as well as sophisticated active scanners. The chest, back, hips, knees and elbows contained small focusing devices that could channel a significant blast of energy in a wide angle to take down any ambushing enemy.

The thighs held external weapons and were the primary location for the growth of extra tools as required, though needing the proper resources. The armour itself was layered with honeycombed, scaled, interwoven patterns and would disperse energy attacks and withstand piercing and blunt forces of great magnitudes.

Furthermore, it would boost his strength and speed greatly, and allow him to fly, aided by small focused jets of energy and hover-technology. An onboard computer would scan and calculate everything and provide him, and Angel when in range, with data and technical support.

Oxygen would be recycled, as would his biological waste though he tried not to think of that. The 'suit' could grow additional defences rapidly thanks to stored material and excess energy created by numerous powerful, yet tiny generators and very efficient solar absorption.

All this was only possible by creating the 'suit' at a much greater size and then reducing it with the 'shrink-ray' left over by the Coreeshi bounty hunters. It had been inspired by an offhand comment by John, and lead to both he and Angel into researching the possibilities.

Nanotechnology could be taken to whole new levels.

But they were keeping that to themselves for now. As they were a great many things.

Being further away from the main conflict, the Hynerian Empire had more Leviathan ships in use and less frigates. Leviathans were cheaper, simple as that. Within three weeks twenty nine females Leviathans of sufficient age were brought to Hyneria under pretext of inspection due to a new space virus infecting females.

Angel had been busy reprogramming some of Michael's seed that she had stored and making the necessary arrangements. It took a few days for Rygel's scientists to impregnate the Leviathans, none knowing the importance of their mission and all believing it was simply because the newly restored Dominar wished for more transport vessels.

A droid would accompany each ship and stay hidden in the womb, making sure everything went as planned and reprogramming DRDs as necessary. They would guard the unborn Dragons and ensure the mothers returned before their due date, just in case something went awry and orders were not followed.

The Pilots were informed that their partners had been impregnated, and told to plan accordingly. Surprisingly little fuss was made; the females, chosen for having birthed at least one offspring already, were always ready for another child, and this time it was encouraged instead of banned. Without even the hassle of finding and winning a mate!

Of the twenty nine, two would be flagships. Three would be research and development vessels, like Angel, and six would be long-range/missile ships. The remaining eighteen would be gunships, like Talyn and Michael.

One flagship for Rygel and one for Scorpius. Three battlegroups would be built around the three R&D ships, each flanked by two missile ships. Six gunships per group. Though all had been altered and had their traits merged slightly.

They would be the Royal Hynerian colours. Rygel's flagship would be gold with purple. The R&D's would be purple with gold. The Missile ships would be black with gold, and the Gunships red and purple. Scorpius' flagship would be black with ice blue, pretty much the opposite of Scarran colouring.

John and Angel would have liked to breed a flagship for themselves here, but it was better to keep everything nice and neat. It would also allow Rygel and Scorpius to think themselves at an advantage, no matter how slight, and that they would be depending on their flagships.

No one knew of the flagship/base on Sykar, and they intended to keep it that way. It was not quite the same, but it carried other advantages in the place of mobility. And they would be in control of exactly how much extra material went where for the first cycle of the Dragons' lives anyway, a few months head start could be fairly easily negated.

After a couple weeks to ensure the seed had taken, the Leviathans were sent back to their duties. John said his goodbyes and left for the Sabacean Empire.

Novia had managed to gather seventeen female Leviathans. No small number considering the violence of the area. Two would be flagships, black and white being the colours of the Sabacean Empire, and Angel choosing theirs to carry her colouring of black with traces of violet and silver.

Unlike the Hynerian Empire's Dragon Fleet, Novia had something else in mind for the first litter, as it were. Gunships with significant power she had already, as well as scientists, researchers and factories. She wanted every single other Dragon to be a missile ship for their long-range weaponry. Fifteen in number, all to be black with bold white highlights.

The procedure was exactly the same, though the scientists involved knew this was a specific military project. They were not given the opportunity to study the seed, Angel made sure of that.

A message was given to Novia, a holographic recording from Rygel the XVI, Dominar of the Hynerian Empire. Greetings, compliments, and a request for the opening of a dialogue with the aim to an alliance between the two great empires.

Novia was not exactly thrilled that another faction would be gaining a Dragon Fleet, but she had no true right to complain and she could see the benefit of a friendly side possessing the same strength. She recorded a response and sent it back with John. Ambassadors were exchanged over the following months and a FTL communications link established.

Very expensive and power consuming when outside of established networks, they were almost only ever built on capital planets, and wealthy ones at that. Considering the large infrastructure, rare materials required, extremely intricate design, delicate maintenance and the fact it could only be keyed into one specific location at a time, it was easy to understand why.

It had the benefits of requiring no vulnerable relay points along the massive distance, being almost impossible to intercept, and being instantaneous.

Several more female Leviathans were gathered in each empire, all being impregnated with Gunships in Hynerian space and Missile ships in Sabacean. Rygel wanted an assault fleet capable of great speeds and overwhelming firepower to supplement his many but individually weaker ships.

Novia on the other hand wanted to establish a more powerful defensive force, having long-ranged vessels orbiting her planets capable of starbursting away for better positioning when necessary. And they would be used to deliver the first salvos when the time for attack came.

John and Angel flew their usual route with Michael in between checking in with both empires. He was rather proud to have fathered so many offspring, and glad to help his mother. There had been an increase in pirate attacks as the survivors told tales of incredible ships roaming the area, and as word of the expensive cargo got out. The Luxans and Ilanics were not know for their subtlety.

Michael of course had handled it brilliantly. Each ship was scanned, defeated, and the parts were towed and dumped in the Sacred Burial Space for later study and cannibalism.

The Luxans were honouring their trade agreement and making no effort to discover the exact source of the 'Kanak fluid'. The Ilanics, however, were not.

Attempts had been made to trick Michael into accepting less than the agreed upon amount of credits and metals. So far as he knew he had not fallen for any, but he did have to resort to threats of force to make them pay the full amount one time.

After that they had paid the full amount, but also sent many probes scanning the former Scorvian planet. Several had been destroyed but some had gotten away. Most likely without much information, but Angel and John agreed it was troublesome. Aside from an increase in alertness, there was not much they could do.

The main worry was that the Ilanics would draw the Luxans into any conflict they entered. John had not forgotten the pull two unknown Ilanics had had on Ka D'Argo, and the instant, unthinking cooperation. The Blood-Alliance between the two peoples was very strong.

So John offered the Luxans a lower price for the same amount of 'Kanak fluid' to improve their opinions of him. They were curious but hardly willing to turn it down. John stated that they had managed to improve production, which was true, and offered discount this to a valued trading partner and hopefully future friend.

They accepted this explanation completely. It was, after all, something they would do for a true friend, as honourable as they sometimes were.

The Ilanics soon heard of it and stopped sending probes, accepting the unsaid rebuke and hoping to receive a similar discount. Doublespeak proved effective in conveying the deal; back off and earn a cheaper price. Keep digging and we will take out business elsewhere.

Things continued much the same for a few more months with John and Angel following their route and checking on everything. Tannot seeds were given in bulk to Rygel's men who distributed them to the more troublesome planets. A few weeks later the populations complained of dying crops and strange new weeds, and were informed that the bulbous red growths were actually a rare delicacy and were ordered not to eat them.

Naturally, the Tannot was swiftly devoured. It's more pleasant effects were discovered and with a little outside help from Rygel's men, it took over the planets completely. Efficient farming, transport, and refinement practices were put in place.

The Hynerian Empire lost some vocal troublemakers and gained a new, profitable energy source. All together six more recently conquered worlds, five prone to rebellious cycles, and another three unproductive and dissident worlds were infected with the modified Scorvian virus and Tannot roots.

Two would be similar to Sykar, purely farming worlds, but the other twelve would also maintain several basic industries such as mining and mass production of various things. Nothing too complicated for the slightly addled workers.

By now the Leviathans were nearly ready to give birth. Angel and her captain gave both empires the coordinates, and they had the pregnant ships make their way there to give birth. Several were not happy, having planned to birth their young in the more traditional birthing spaces known to them, but it was less important an instinct than the urge to die in the Sacred Burial Space. Mostly due to the fact that they were in a secluded area and surrounded by other pregnant Leviathans, so it was deemed acceptable.

No others were permitted in the area, and Rygel and Novia were told not to expect much contact, possibly none at all, for the full cycle. Scorpius was even kept in the dark as to the location, though Rygel and John harboured no illusions that it would remain secret from him for long.

All together there were fifty one pregnant Leviathans from the Hynerian Empire, and thirty four from the Sabacean Empire. Both rulers had done exceedingly well in acquiring more ships, though in some cases it was through less than legal means. Bought, hired, borrowed, stolen, enslaved, all were female and old enough to have birthed at least one offspring before.

Needless to say, it was quite the gathering.

Leviathans rarely gathered in such large numbers save to find mates. All being female and all being pregnant, there was little to do but play in the asteroid field and wait to give birth.

Angel had stocked up on massive amounts of droids and DRDs to ensure everything went smoothly and as quickly as possible. They were distributed amongst the ships where they made modifications to ease the birthing process, and made the necessary modifications afterwards.

It took just over three months for all the young Dragons to be born.

One by one they gave birth to gunships, R&D ships, missile ships and finally flagships. The mothers were distraught over the reality of their hybrid children, but the droids aboard them modified their cognitive abilities and memories enough for it not to be a problem.

They all linked up with quasi-umbilical cords to share further nutrients with their children, while the DRDs boarded the newborn Dragons and followed the plan.

Every gunship and missile ship, all females by Angel's design, had their reproductive systems locked down and their higher consciousness severed. No longer would they be completely sapient, they were now tamed beasts. Intelligent ones, but never to the level they could have been. Several immature eggsacks were taken from each for studying and to increase Angel's dwindling supply.

The three R&D ships, Rygel's, also all females, had their eggs completely removed and stored in Angel. Their independence was worn down but their higher minds left intact.

Copies of Angel's and John's neural clones, especially programmed for loyalty, were installed in the vestigial pilot's den where they would be both Pilot and first Captain to all the Dragons. They were buried deep in the minds of the ships, and linked so utterly and from so early on that they were inseparable from the Dragons themselves.

The flagships that would be given to Rygel and Novia were treated much the same as the gunships and missiles ships; neither ruler wished to be dependant on a fully sapient vessel. However their reproductive systems were left completely intact, if locked down. They too were female and Angel was curious to see wether their designed capacity to grow additional wombs and birth actual litters of multiple offspring at the same time was feasible.

The dragon flagship destined for Scorpius, and the one for Angel and John were both left mostly as they were, save for the neural clone captains. Scorpius intended to have his flagship be as capable as possible, and wanted to forge a relationship with an equal partner. Angel and John respected him a little more for that. Not enough to stop them from neutering the only male flagship to prevent him from building his own fleet, but still.

In all cases, the newborn dragons were given several droids and DRDs to boost their growth and to maintain a presence controlled by Angel onboard them no matter how far they were separated.

The Hynerian Empire would have a flagship, three R&D ships, six missile ships, and forty gunships; all essentially neutered sexually, save the flagship, and mentally as much as possible for best results while still totally controlled.

The Sabacean Empire would have a flagship and thirty two missile ships; all neutered mentally and sexually, excepting the flagship which was only limited mentally.

Scorpius would have a mentally intact, completely sexually neutered male flagship.

John and Angel had neural clones, droids and DRDs in place on each and every single one of them, including their own fully intact female flagship.

Soon the young dragons had gained as much benefit from their mothers presence as was possible without damaging them, and so they were sent back to their respective empires. Not before new samples of Michael's seed were transported aboard them with droids to be used to impregnate them again once they had recovered from the birth.

Once free of the mothers, Angel sent out a command for them to follow her at top speed. With the modifications she and John had made to the seed to include most of the designs to her upgraded systems, the dragons had been born with the improved Hetch Drives and were capable of remarkable speeds even so young and without starburst.

They made their way to the Sacred Burial Space, or as John had joked, the Sacred Food Court. All eighty five newborn dragons, not counting Angel or Michael, made for an impressive convoy. Fortunately Michael had been instructed to widen his territory around the area, no pirates or anybody for that matter would be close enough to pick up on what was happening, let alone interfere.

Thousands of DRDs, drones, and droids were waiting for them when they arrived. Angel and Michael had not been idle. During the months of waiting, they had produced and transported the different automated workers to the Sacred Burial Space where they set to work rendering the Leviathan corpses and debris into more convenient forms. Liquid and dust were best.

The young dragons enjoyed a massive feast where they gorged themselves. With so much perfectly suited material and so many workers to speed their growth along, they seemed to mature at almost visibly noticeable rates.

None more so than the flagships.

By the end of the first month, the four flagships were nearly as large as Angel. An astounding feat only upset by the very large amounts of empty space they contained within their hulls. Extra attention was given to their own flagship, and it definitely showed. It was soon nearly twice the size of the others as the explosive rate of growth slowed to more natural levels.

They decided to name their flagship Haven. It would spend all its time right where it was for the foreseeable future, growing larger and more powerful.

By then all the pre-prepared material had run out and the droids were spending most of their time rendering down more. After four months the gunships and missile ships were mature enough for a test. Rygel had provided the location of an aggressive system neighbouring one of his newly conquered worlds. It's level of technology was not too advanced that it would pose a significant risk, yet it would be challenging enough to give the young dragons some experience.

The three inhabited planets in the system fell quickly before their might. One by one their armies fell to bombardments by the missile ships and overwhelming hit and run fire from the gunships. Several were damaged but none overly so, and it was quickly remedied by another visit to the Sacred Burial Space.

At the rate they were going they were making a noticeable dent in the number of Leviathan corpses. Which was impressive considering the tens or even hundreds of thousands of years the space had been used as a gravesite. Angel estimated they would be able to make full use of the area for only a few decades longer if their rate of growth continued.

Then they would simply move to another Sacred Burial Space, or perhaps something else would be arranged.

Once the dragons were fully recovered, Angel and John took the Sabacean Empire ones, decked out in black and white, back to their new masters. The flagship was now nearly twice Angel's size if less than half her mass, and the thirty two missile ships were about half her length.

Novia was needless to say impressed with her new dragon fleet. She had not truly expected them to be so impressive so soon. Captains had been chosen, vetted and briefed on their new vessels. Thirty two captains each with a dozen or so crewmen that doubled as soldiers would live aboard the dragons. The flagship would stay in orbit around the capital royal planet and would house mostly technicians as it grew.

Novia requested a means for her to be linked to the flagship that would not be invasive and could be removed conveniently. Angel and John worked on the design and sent the information to the DRDs onboard the flagship, where they coaxed the vessel into creating it.

This removable link was fashioned like a crown, polished black with some elegant white crystals, it appeared to be woven from thin metallic branches. It would rest around her forehead and when activated several of the branches would shift down the back to cover the back of her head and most of her neck.

Due to the flagship's decreased sentience, she would have almost total control of the ship, though receive limited information from it. She would not sense things as the ship did, only receive refined reports it specifically sent her as she requested them.

Novia was quite happy with the crown.

John and Angel stayed for a week to get the new captains and crews settled in, but after that they left to rejoin the other dragons. While they were hardly defenceless, the young dragons were far from fully mature and would be severely damaged by any well prepared foes.

Fortunately they had numbers on their side, as the whaling parties had returned in force while they were away. The gruesome pirates were no match for the many gunships darting in and out of cover behind the massive Leviathan corpses they were after.

Angel and John congratulated the dragons on their victory before leading them back to the Hynerian Empire. By this time Michael had returned and was told to watch over their new flagship, Haven. Michael liked this daughter especially, one of the two that were left sentient out of the entire group and the only addition to the inner group as it were.

Haven understood her role in their plans and quite liked it. She was to be the largest, strongest mobile fortress in the skies. For now that meant doing little but absorbing more matter and growing. Her voice was deeper than Angel's, and where Angel was curious, intelligent and ambitious, and Michael was aggressive, protective and obedient, Haven seemed to have a simpler personality. She wanted to grow and be of use, and was perfectly content to stay floating around in the Sacred Burial Space to accomplish this.

Of course, that was likely because Angel had made her that way.

The voyage to Hynerian space took slightly longer but eventually they arrived. Rygel, unlike Novia, wished to have a permanent neural link with his flagship. It was easily done and soon Rygel had a small shiny metallic disk inserted into the back of his neck. He was very happy with his new dragon fleet.

Again, captains and crew had been chosen and were ferried aboard the dragons to be paired up. Rygel formed three battle groups centred around the three R&D vessels. Two missile ships to flank, and six gunships to protect and scout. The remaining twenty two gunships would rotate between transporting goods between his planets, while simultaneously guarding the trade routes, and protecting his flagship now named The Great Dragon.

Scorpius too was linked with his flagship. He named her Ragnarok. He had requested that she be outfitted more like the R&D ships, to better suit his talents. So she was far more curious than Haven. They seemed well matched.

Both John and Angel were quite worried about the pair, but for the sheer number of fail safes in place. There were no less than five separate copies of their neural clones hidden away in Ragnarok's mind, not counting the overt one or the one physically in Scorpius' head. There were droids onboard programmed to guard certain key areas, and the DRDs were theirs as well.

The final fails as were a number of explosive devices placed around the ship, all well hidden and guarded as well, and the DRDs were set to overload the starburst chamber should anything fall outside their accepted parameters. Rygel also ordered four gunships to escort Ragnarok around as guards, both for and against.

Once the new captains were settled, and Rygel informed that the female leviathans would be impregnated soon again as planned, Angel and John left to meet up with Michael and Haven.

They arrived just in time for Angel to give birth to her second child, another flagship. Tweaking the programming of the eggs and embryos to include some of her newer adaptions had given her and John an idea, and they wanted to test it out.

They had made a large number of breakthroughs in genetically modifying the dragons before and during their conception, Angel wanted to take it to a new level. She wanted to make the changes be carried on to the generation after that, and she believed she had succeeded with this new daughter.

It was technically a flagship, but it would be very different. While Haven was very Leviathan in shape, more flat than anything, their latest daughter was not. Her silhouette from the front was more like a cross, as though a second leviathan occupying the same space had rotated so their decks were at right angles, and then the seams filed down to be more angular.

The result was four tail fins merging at the end of the elongated spine, and a very pointed tip. They named her Spear. Like Haven she would grow to massive proportions, but unlike Haven she would not focus almost entirely on having enormous hangars to house her brethren. Instead she would grow drones on her hull.

Lots and lots of drones.

At secure, major points on her hull and where her womb and hangars would have been, she would also grow quasi-gunships class dragons. They would be more like the Hynerian gunships though, except being born that way. They would be more like drones than like Michael, never having complete sentience. They would also not bother with things like life support and space for a crew until they lived past a certain point.

The birthing process was rather more difficult this time, but with so many droids and DRDs it went without too much hassle. Once more neural clones of John and Angel were installed as captain. Spear was welcomed to the family. She would stay with Haven in growing larger and guarding the Sacred Burial Space. Haven was now mature enough and powerful enough to guard her newborn aunt, or sister as the dragons considered Angel to be their mother.

Michael hurried off with a couple extended starbursts to make up for lost time in his trading route, and Angel went with him. Sykar was progressing nicely with several dozen defence satellites in orbit around the planet. The base was growing nicely with the new mining operations gathering materials for it, and production had increased with several automated processes being installed across the planet.

They picked up Chakan oil and Kanak fluid, and many more Tannot seeds before heading for the Luxan territories.

Some of the extra Kanak fluid was bought up eagerly at the same rate by the Luxans, and they invited Scythe to drink with them. It came near a rather tragic anniversary so a nostalgic John agreed, much to Angel's worry and Michael's amusement.

They found him to be an interesting fellow and very handy in a bar fight, even if he had trouble holding their very potent liquor. He got on better with the warriors than the tradesmen with some of his stories, though most liked him regardless.

After he was drunk enough to challenge them to head-butting contests, that is.

It took him the better part of a week to completely sleep off his hangover.

Angel thought it poetic justice for making her worry.

The Ilanics purchased the rest of the Kanak fluid just as eagerly as their cousins, but John and Angel were starting to seriously wonder why they bothered. The Ilanics were now constantly testing the security on Scorvia in their percieved absence, and had seemingly decided to make cracking the secret of 'Kanak fluid' their life's goal.

Unfortunately there was nothing to be done about it. Scorvia was developing wonderfully and had by now stockpiled quite large amounts of Chakan oil, security drones and satellites. Jamming towers were being raised in overlapping patterns over the entire planet and so the secret was fairly secure.

Angel had decided it was time to add another world to their collection, and John agreed. After some discussion, Kanvia was decided upon. It was advanced yet fairly isolated, having recently been unified into a single government, though that might have changed with several deaths in the ruling family and the power struggles that seemed common. It's location in the Uncharted Territories assured that their conquering of it would ruffle few feathers on the galactic scale.

So they dropped off the remaining Chakan oil with Noiva's people in exchange for credits and heavy metals, checked that the dragons and their crews were settling in well, and made their way to conquer a planet.

Kanvia was locked down. No trade was permitted in or out of their space while the council members fought for control of the planet. Apparently the entire ruling family had been killed, with several signs pointing to off-worlders. Angel wasted no time. A quick starburst as close to the planet's surface as possible was followed by a strafing run across the most densely populated areas with the Tannot toxin virus that had worked so wonderfully against the Scorvians.

Angel's defence screens took multiple hits during her extended bombardment, but she soon left the system almost undamaged. And within a week the planet would be theirs. They made their way back to Scorvia where they stocked up on droids before ferrying them closer to Kanvia and leaving them to float in space, before repeating the process three more times. By then the virus had infected most of the population, and two more runs ensured it.

Then the droids were taken to the planet in four quick trips, where they spread out in groups to take over the planet. Propaganda was blasted out at loud volume so the suggestible Kanvians even helped them along. Mainframes and networks were hacked and reprogrammed with help from the docile technicians themselves. People went door to door to 'share the good news' about their new leader, and also the virus that spread via contact and shared air.

By the end of a month the planet was well and truly on its way to following in Scorvia's footsteps. Being already united into a paranoid, military dictatorship meant that the economy and infrastructure were easily converted to farming Tannot and unmanned military drones. The designs were altered to more easily be built by the existing factories, with the common alloys and technologies, but they would be very similar to the ones on Scorvia.

The planet received very little sunlight so the farms were already hydroponic facilities and highly automated. It was easily converted into farms for the Tannot, as were several stretches of wasteland currently unused. The less skilled members of society would farm the Tannot there, and many warehouses and corporate buildings would be converted into refining and storage facilities for the Chakan oil.

With all the changes, life went on much as it always had for the Kanvians, except they were happier thanks to the toxins dancing in their blood. With so many automated farms already existing, unlike Scorvia where the citizens formerly favoured more meat based diets, the average citizen of Kanvia maintained their basic lifestyle.

The councillor's were even left in charge, though they were ordered to work together for the good of Kanvia. They would oversee the development of the planet and the Tannot root, as well as it's refinement and export as more stable Kanak fluid.

Naturally, Scythe was their ruler and would oversee every decision they made, as well as pocket the profits. With the population now artificially so peaceful, until disturbed, and life simplified to such a degree that currency amongst themselves wasn't needed, every bank account was drained and converted into credits for Angel to carry back. With everything centralised, this was surprisingly easily done.

With almost every effort now focused on mining, the Tannot to Chakan oil process, and mass production of droids and drones, the planet of Kanvia turned out to be a very profitable acquisition. That it's moons were home to extensive mining operations to provide material for their export of weapons and refined materials certainly helped.

Another month was spent solidifying their hold on the system and making sure everything was set up. Working propaganda was spouted from speakers all over the cities and every populated area, and the councillors were charged with increasing production and repurposing existing infrastructure to better suit their new roles.

Kanvia swiftly became a second Scorvia. Angel left and informed Michael of a new stop in his usual route. Fortunately Kanvia already had trading routes set up with it's neighbours and interested parties, so Michael wouldn't have to ferry anything extra. For now it would simply be checkups to make sure everything was progressing smoothly.

They decided to return to the Sabacean Empire to check in with Novia and see how her dragons were progressing. This time though, they decided it was time to test their new Wormhole Drive.

Instead of waiting for a natural wormhole to appear and arriving in time by calculating exactly when and where it would form, or creating one by utilising the strange form of energy collisions created by the Farscape manoeuvre near solar activity, John had come up with something different.

Something better.

He and Angel had, thanks to 'Harvey' the neural implant, access to the standard wormhole information gifted to his subconscious by 'Jack' the Ancient. Having unlocked it once, then having been directly gifted with weaponised wormhole knowledge, then having it all ripped haphazardly away, had left quite the impact on his mind. The remains of Harvey had held the key.

A key Angel had been able to exploit.

Unfortunately the weaponised wormhole technology was beyond her grasp, but the standard information was all there. With John's help, they had worked through it together until not only could they both calculate when and where a wormhole would form, but they could sense it as well. Angel could almost smell where they would appear, but now John could practically see them.

It had opened up entirely new worlds for them.

Wormhole knowledge had a way of growing consciousness somehow. What it meant was that when John was in the zone making his calculations, his mind was racing through figures and information faster than most supercomputers.

For Angel with her already gigantic intelligence and capacity for thought, it made her nothing short of godlike. Between her insane amount of processing power and his innate intuition regarding the art of wormholes, they made a formidable pair.

The Wormhole Drive pulled the energy from the starburst chamber around Angel's hull but let even more bleed over the hull itself. Then when it reached the tip of her front it was used by three small retractable apertures in a pyramid shape to open a tiny wormhole. The devices then ripped it wide open, channeling the energy to maintain it just long enough for the partial starburst to thrust Angel into it before it closed behind her, looking for all the galaxy like a slightly abnormal starburst.

The energy allowed to bleed over the hull, held in place and focused by modified shield emitters, would protect her from the chaotic radiations, and any abnormalities, of the less than stable wormholes it would create. This was the trick.

John knew from his contact with the Ancients and the Pathfinders that stable wormholes were monitored more closely. By not creating a stable wormhole, and by not using a Phase Stabiliser, they would slip under the radar. The coating energy would also mess with sensors and destroy any of the strange occurrences that sometimes happened in such cases. It also allowed the form of travel to pass as starburst.

Another benefit to using unstable wormholes was that any ship close enough to slip in with them would be destroyed, lacking the correct protections. The Wormhole Drive was also able to create stable wormholes and make them last, but that would be accomplished by firing a bolt of starburst energy from the hull and detonating it at the specific coordinates, much like the wormhole weapon, or the chaotic energy blast.

In such cases it would still need to be navigated successfully, but John was working on a way to narrow the options down. When successful, it would essentially create a one way shortcut to wherever he desired, and it would be all but idiot proof to access.

But that was not finished just yet.

It was one of their long term projects, though.

Angel powered up her main starburst chamber and activated her newest drive. It worked flawlessly. Silvery purple energy coated her hull and ran through the vein-like ripples just like in starburst, only in much greater quantities as it rushed up to meet at the tip of her head. There instead of forming a circular portal, it focused to a point where it suddenly turned wormhole blue, enlarged and then disappeared as Angel burst through it into nothingness.

Though she had the memories of her captain, Aeryn and Scorpius, it was Angel's first time through a wormhole and the sensation was amazing. Before she knew it the trip was over and she was spat out into normal space where she quickly took back control from her captain who she had let pilot her through the winding corridors that were breeches of spacetime. She had followed his thoughts closely, and it was definitely more art than science.

Novia was pleased to seem them, and the Chakan oil they brought. She had received nothing but praise for the Dragon Fleet, and many of the more senior crew members were petitioning for captaincy of their own dragon. Her flagship had been creatively named the Royal Flagship. Well, it wasn't any worse than Rygel's Great Dragon, John mused to Angel. He loved her chiming laughter.

There had even been one case where a crew member had attempted a mutiny, thinking to steal the ship and sell it to the highest bidder on the open market, but the dragon's internal defences had easily dealt with him.

Now that the dragons were more mature, John had some droids and DRDs take more samples of their eggs. It took a couple weeks to accomplish, as spread out as they were, but in the end it was done. Their reproductive systems were locked down again after that. They then spent the next month visiting the female leviathans and tweaking Michael's seed, held by the droids, with some improvements and diversity. Novia had acquired a few more female leviathans, so those were included as well.

They then did the same with the Hynerian dragons, once more using the Wormhole Drive to achieve the journey almost instantly. This time it took even longer to collect the samples and track down the mothers, with Rygel having so many more dragons and them being spread out much more, but this too was accomplished.

The samples would be useful in diversifying the gene pool, right now it was just Angel, Michael and his offspring and Spear. Now there would be yet another generation, even if there were technically no new genes they would still be spread out more.

By now the mothers had fully recovered from the less than traditional births and so were impregnated again. Same procedure and numbers as last time, though with no flagships. Both Rygel and Novia thought they had enough trouble feeding one the massive amounts of metals required to speed their growth. Of course they could simply let them grow at a normal rate, but both rulers thought it a waste of time and so channeled resources to speed things along.

The key difference this time though was that John asked for several of the pregnancies for himself. Technically he could order them around at will, under his authorities with both empires, but he was content at the moment to let the rulers and their men get used to the alien warships.

Rygel agreed at once, and offered complete use of up to half his dragons at his good friend's whim. John declined but thanked the Dominar. Novia on the other hand was more nervous, having significantly less dragons than her Hynerian ally, but eventually agreed.

Out of the fifty one pregnant leviathans in the Hynerian Empire, John would keep six of the pregnancies himself. Out of the now thirty nine from the Sabacean Empire, John would keep four. Once the numbers were decided, Angel left immediately to make some modifications to the embryos that would be her chosen dragons. Or more accurately, to swap out the embryos and start again with much more modified ones of her devising.

They now had ten new dragons to add to their immediate fleet.

After much deliberation on the journey, it was decided that three would be the new Spear class dragons, four would be modified gunships like Michael, and the remaining three would be a new class altogether.

They had been working on new designs they might implement and had one that struck them both as being incredibly useful. In a cross between something like Moya and Spear, they would have three fins and be almost triangular as seen from the front.

Taking into account difficulties in the birthing process, they would start off more conventionally formed but swiftly grow into their unique new forms. Wider and taller than even Spear, their fins would grow further and further apart in the middle, leaving a massive space open there. Like Angel, their spine would stop short and would not extend to join their fins.

The largest difference would be that instead of trailing behind them, these fins would actually be the front of these unique dragons. This was done by completely rearranging everything about them, including having no less than four starburst chambers. One massive one in the more traditional area, but three smaller ones at the base of each fin or 'arm'.

This glut of energy would be used to power the main point of the unique design, a brand new starburst canon. The arms and hull would funnel and focus the energy to a point in space between the three pincer-like fins, contained in an incredibly intricate and powerful field, where it could be launched off to obliterate a massive target, or sent out in a continuous guided beam to bisect enemy vessels like a laser scalpel.

Their design would also allow them to starburst both forwards and backwards. All leviathans were capable of this feat, as Moya and her crew discovered by necessity, but these 'Tridents', as John called the design, would be able to do it with ease and without catastrophic repercussions.

The downside would be severely decreased manoeuvrability unless flying backwards, so they was designed to easily accomplish this saw well. They would never be as agile as Michael, but they wouldn't be quite so sluggish as they would be otherwise. The arms would hold many turrets staggered so they didn't line up, and the main hull itself would also hold many for point defence. Most would have to be retracted to fire the main weapon, but the larger turrets were built in designed locations so that this wasn't necessary for them so that the Tridents wouldn't be completely defenceless when this happened, and the small ones would be quickly extended again regardless.

These would be the heavy hitters.

Also, when it was eventually finished, they would be the ones opening stable wormholes for other ships to pass through. Once again though, this all came at the price of storage, deck, and hangar space, though this time also a lack of reproductive systems. Like the Spears, there simply wasn't enough space to fit everything in without making sacrifices. Both the Spears and the new Tridents would need every inch for their starburst chambers, reactors, and in the Spears' case, quasi-wombs.

Such was the power of these Tridents that neither John nor Angel was comfortable letting them keep their full sentience, so once more they would be artificially born all but brain dead. More than this though, they would also not have any life support or space for inhabitants save DRDs and droids for maintenance. This would greatly reduce the amount of resources required, just like in Spear's case.

After successfully impregnating the females of their choice with the desired modified seed, and removing the previous embryos, they left to check up on Haven and Spear in the Sacred Burial Space. The two flagships were growing incredibly quickly, though Spear more so than Haven due to her not needing living space.

The result was that Haven was massive, but Spear had more actual maturity. Haven was more like a balloon with an amazing amount of empty space inside her. Both were absolutely covered with weapons, Spear on her arches and fins while Haven simply had them everywhere, with several hard points protecting the larger groups.

Spear's eight sides though were covered by rapidly growing drones. She cheerfully informed them that her hangars, that opened where her main body ended and spine/fins began as well as eight smaller openings in the middle of her sides, were nearly full and soon she would be storing excess drones in Haven's storage space and hangars. Unfortunately she was not yet mature enough to grow the much larger, quasi-gunship sized drones just yet. John decided to call them Swords, with the idea of calling the smaller drones Daggers.

Haven informed them that she currently had three almost complete wombs, but that she too was not yet mature enough to use them. She did however have enough room to store several hundred drones and several dozen 'Swords'. She could not yet supply that many with nutrients and materials for repairs at the same time, but she was working on that part as well.

Neither had found any trace of pirates in the time they had been there, which was good news. They had likely decided to cut their losses, or all that knew about this place had died.

In any case, John and Angel decided there needed to be some extra security in the area. They used the ten frozen embryos, modified them, and one by one Angel gave birth to ten severely premature dragons. They were tiny compared to the usual size of newborns, but their modifications designed them for such. With no lifesupport, deck space, or reproductive systems, they were quite like Spear's Swords would eventually be, if wider and shorter in length. They didn't even need to have their minds dulled down, being practically brain dead at birth.

Droids and DRDs swiftly had their neural clones installed as captains, they were very efficient at it by now. These ten Swords would grow here and guard it and their brethren against any invaders, with their lives if necessary. Starburst development took a backseat to engines and weapons, but in the material rich space with so many DRDs and droids helping them along, they would swiftly be brought up to spec.

So premature were they that they didn't even have the colours of their respective empires. All were the bronzed gold of more normal leviathans. It would help them blend into the leviathan corpses quite well.

After the few months that took, angel and John were ready to leave and so decided to check up on Kanvia via wormhole. It was progressing very well, and they stocked up on credits made from their sales of weapons and materials. Kanak fluid sales would begin later when they had a sufficient amount stocked up.

They were quite pleased to see the defence satellites orbiting the planet, as well as the increased farming of the Tannot root.

From there they left for Scorvia to find much the same, except with even more defence satellites. They were all but blanketing the sky now. Most of the planet was now devoted to growing the Tannot and refining it. It would now be more than capable of handling the demand from the Luxans and Ilanics.

The next stop was Sykar, where they found it's defences engaged against a Peace Keeper fleet. Fortunately it was holding its own for the moment, but the mining operations supplying the factory were still so new and the base wasn't ready to defend against such a force for extended periods.

So Angel swooped into range and opened fire with her turrets, frag cannons and stolen Scarren energy beams. Prowlers fell as the sheer number of blasts connected with the bulk of their fighters, and several of the frigates took a battering. The leading Command Carrier pulled back and turned to face them, understandably deeming them the greater threat.

Angel and John then stopped firing and hailed them.

"Peace Keeper vessels hold your fire and explain your attack on our colony! We demand you explain your presence and actions here in the Uncharted Territories where you have no jurisdiction and no right to invade us!"

After a moment all weapons-fire ceased. A comm channel opened and a stern Sabacean male appeared on the screen.

"Unknown vessel, this is Captain Dakysh of the Peace Keepers. Your defences fired the first shots and we defended ourselves from your unprovoked attacks. You will surrender your vessel and be brought aboard for questioning or we will destroy you."

"Captain Dakysh, I am called Scythe. You presence here threatened this colony, and our logs clearly show that you ignored all attempts at communication and advanced regardless of warnings to the contrary. You are in direct violation of the Treaty with the Scarrens merely by bringing so large a fleet into this area, let alone invading an inhabited planet. What could be so important about this one colony that you would risk outright war?"

The Peace Keeper captain frowned but had no answer. The truth that they were there to reclaim a Tannot farm world was obviously known to both sides, but the Peace Keepers could not let this knowledge reach the Scarrens. He could not risk this ship escaping or the war would start again. He was stuck. The distance between the two ships, and the alien nature of Angel, coupled with how fast it had approached, left him unprepared to give chase, and utterly unsure of his next move.

John gave him an out.

"Perhaps, instead of us fighting, for I assure you we would not surrender, we could do business. I happen to have a large quantity of something you might be interested in purchasing."

The Peace Keeper captain almost seemed to sigh, before making a motion to someone off screen. The picture seemed to acquire a slightly reddish hue, letting both Angel and John know that privacy measures had been activated.

"Let us speak plainly. You and I both know the Tannot grows here. You have obviously been busy in our absence. We cannot allow this to fall into enemy hands, but we cannot allow the Scarrens to know of this either. What would you propose I do, knowing full well my only current choice is battle with your strange ship and defences?"

John smiled.

"As you said, you cannot allow the Scarrens to know of your presence here. The answer is simple: do not have a presence here. We would be perfectly happy to sell you the Chakan oil, at a reasonable price I assure you. We would even arrange transportation and security to a location of your choice, and at much greater speed than you would be capable of. This ship may seem strange to you, but it can outfly anything.

"This is almost convenient for us, we were just about to start looking for a buyer. Do not fear the secret being discovered though, we have taken great measures to see this advantage kept out of others' reach."

§

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After further negotiations, a deal was struck. Information regarding payments and destinations, purity and storage of the Chakan oil, and other such details were agreed on.

In fact John and Angel were starting to feel pretty good about themselves and this latest deal, for it would open up trade with the Peace Keeper territories and the surrounding area. Of course, that's when things went wrong.

The captain could not allow the Tannot to fall into the hands of outsiders. While the deal was being made, his techs and science officers devised a method of getting several high-yield nuclear weapons past the defence satellites.

It might have worked, had John and Angel not been quite so paranoid. Or have Scorpius' neural clone. Her point defences and drones obliterated the missiles and suicide Prowlers, before she used her main starburst energy launcher to rip a hole in the enemy fleet.

The shivering energy ripped through the Command Carrier causing enormous damage and sending secondary explosions through it's massive hull. Beams and bolts of laser and chaotic energy disabled the rest of the fleet even as the shock waves from the main weapon trashed their shields and computer systems.

It was over remarkably quickly with the aid of the defence satellites. Drones were launched, both from Angel and the defence fleet, to drag the remains of the ships down to the planet surface where the bio-mechanoid factory's droids would render them down.

While not as useful as a trading agreement with the Peace Keepers could have been, it was still a useful encounter. With all the extra metals the factory would be able to grow much more quickly for a time, and produce even more defences. The remains of the Command Carrier were kept in orbit to be taken apart piece by piece, as it was far too large to be safely dragged down to the surface.


End file.
